There is always a fair amount of rejoicing when we receive a new grant, but the most recent for the CIPC, $50,000 from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts provides cause for extra excitement.

The one-year grant will allow us to build an online course not for providers or health professionals, but for patients and families impacted by Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). The project, “Development of a Patient and Family Engagement Educational Program for Primary Care of Patients with Opioid Use Disorder” takes a different tack than most interventions focused on patients only.

We know that patients with OUD are at significant risk of morbidity and mortality and that rates of OUD in the US have increased dramatically, with an even greater increase in Massachusetts. One response to this epidemic has been to increase treatment access. For treatment to be successful, however, the patient, and family when present, must be engaged and educated. Patients and families are often inadequately educated about treatment options with misconceptions regarding the efficacy of residential treatment, detoxification, methadone maintenance, and buprenorphine. Patients are reluctant to seek treatment because of stigma, and families may fail to support a patient because of bias. This project builds on the State Without StigMA initiative, helpline-online.com, and other initiatives that provide general OUD information; and seeks to actively involve patients and families by developing online learning modules to educate them about treatment options, their roles, and engage them in care.

UMass faculty will bring to this project growing expertise in Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) provided in primary care, harm reduction informed primary care, and expertise in the integration of primary care and behavioral health treatment.  Patients and family members will be directly engaged in the production of the modules funded by this grant. The final modules will be distributed free of charge.

We are grateful for the financial support of the BCBS MA Foundation and we urge you to stay tuned as our team of experts, educators and course designers tackles this project.  We envision this as part of a more comprehensive model of learning modules and ongoing support for primary care providers for which we are seeking funding.

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