CIPC Blog

In President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union he described a four-part Unity Agenda, and declared, “By this summer, the Federal Bureau of Prisons will ensure that each of their 122 facilities are equipped and trained to provide in-house medication-assisted treatment (MAT).”

Two more patients of mine died this past weekend. Two more on top of two more on top of two more. I have lost more patients in the last three years from opioid deaths than I have lost patients from all causes during my entire career. 

Might common and widespread practices surrounding Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) actually be harming patients? Steve Martin, MD, EdM, is lead author on a paper recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that examines the evidence.  The findings in the article will form the backbone of a course that will be given to all Massachusetts medical school students.  UMass CIPC is leading the team that will build this critical training.

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The opioid epidemic inflicts significant human and economic damage in the United States. A July article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Drs. Sarah Wakeman and Michael Barnett provides a helpful summary of the myths and realities associated with buprenorphine (Suboxone) and the opioid epidemic.

The UMass Center for Integrated Primary Care continues to play an active role in training primary care teams to respond to the needs of patients with Opioid Use Disorder.

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Opioid addiction is a national epidemic.  Effective treatment options exist but are challenging to access, especially for patients who live in remote, rural areas. There is a long history of separation of treatment of addiction and medicine and a disconnect between primary care and treatment for opioid addiction.  Our project has brought evidence-based treatment to a population in great need.  

UMass CIPC recently partnered with an Accountable Care Organization in rural New York, Bassett Healthcare Network, to expand their provision of Medication Assisted Treatment. Our work together began in January of 2017 and was primarily delivered via video conferencing.  This post was written by James Andersen, PhD a former behavioral health fellow at UMass Chan and a key partner in this collaboration.

One of our recent fellows, Joan Fleishman, PsyD, is the Behavioral Health Clinical and Research Director in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). She recently co-authored a paper in the Annals of Family Medicine. “Interdisciplinary Management of Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care” describes a Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) program in the Pacific Northwest.