A new program at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center means staff can more easily connect patients who overdose with follow-up outpatient care.
As of fall 2024, hospital employees can call a scheduling phone line, provided by ScalaNW, a new program from the Washington State Health Care Authority. Calls can be made at any time of day to schedule an outpatient appointment for a patient to continue receiving medication for opioid use disorder, said Rachel Lucy, the director of community health.
When people arrive in the emergency department after an overdose, employees try to get patients started on medications such as suboxone or methadone that can treat acute withdrawal and reduce the risk of overdose, said James Scribner, the medical director in the ED.
Previously, social workers had to call clinics all over the community to secure a follow-up appointment for a patient before they left the ED.
[ Read more: Overdose deaths were down in Whatcom County in 2024 ]
Mullane Harrington, program director for behavioral health, said this often meant that social workers were telling patients to go early in the morning to a clinic to try to secure a walk-in appointment, due to the lack of appointments.
But ScalaNW has made its own connections with outpatient providers in the community, Harrington said, negotiating with those providers to hold appointment spaces for people who have overdosed and are exiting the emergency department.
“To be able to connect at [2 a.m.] and say, ‘I need an appointment for suboxone, [for] somebody in the community to carry this prescription forward,’ and to have that within days?” Harrington said. “That’s been the game changer.”
The impact of this shift is hard to quantify right now, but Harrington said it has resulted in an immediate sense of relief for staff that they’re connecting people to resources. And there are clear benefits to patients who more easily access appointments and medication long term, Scribner said.
“We know that the greatest risk of death after an overdose is in those first 24 to 48 hours after someone has overdosed and been revived,” Lucy said. “And so that care we provide in that initial time, and that EMS provides, and those linkages they make on the street, is very vital, and that’s where we’re going to start to see the deaths decline.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
