Funding for an opioid addiction treatment initiative pioneered by faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine has been extended for four years.
Known as EMergency Department-Initiated BuprenorphinE for Opioid Use Disorder, or EMBED, the project was designed to develop a user-friendly IT solution to facilitate the initiation of buprenorphine —an effective yet underutilized opioid addiction medication — in the emergency department (ED). Last year, Drs. Ted Melnick, Gail D’Onofrio, and their colleagues used more than $800,000 in initial funding to find the most effective way to encourage prescribing of buprenorphine in the emergency department, followed by referral to ongoing medication treatment.
Going forward, the National Institute on Drug Abuse will provide approximately $7.9 million over four years to support a multicenter trial to study the strategy’s effectiveness in 20 emergency departments across the country.
Melnick, assistant professor of emergency medicine and director of the Clinical Informatics Fellowship, focuses his research on improving electronic health record usability to optimize healthcare delivery.
D’Onofrio, professor of emergency medicine and the inaugural chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, is recognized internationally for her work in screening emergency department patients for alcohol and other substance use, brief intervention, and referral to treatment.
