Battling Two Frontiers: Substance Use Epidemic during a Pandemic

What are veterans experiencing in this battle against opioid use disorder? Two veterans share their stories of realizing how this has hit their community hard. The battle off the battlefield continues and being there for each other to make a difference is what it's all about.

The emergency room is the first line of defense in saving lives to the opioid crisis. Hearing from our 2 guests today on how they are working to change what VA does in the ED to connect veterans into care for treatment with buprenorphine and assuring they have access to life saving treatments life naloxone.

Whether it is connecting with patients, caregivers, or providers video is the new norm, hear from our 2 guests on how the new normal of video connection has been integrated into the day to day care that means closing the gap for high risk care for veterans.

Talking about outreach, getting to the patients in the community reaching them outside of their regularly scheduled visit and inviting them into care. What does that look like with partnerships in the VA system.

In general, Veterans have been shown to have higher rates of suicide than their non-Veteran peers. VA has made suicide prevention, substance use disorder treatment, and drug overdose interventions a priority. In this episode we will hear from Aimee Johnson who leads innovation on Suicide Prevention efforts for Veterans on new strategies VA has made in impacting suicide prevention with a public health approach.

Using risk assessment and population health resources to help us in the war against the opioid epidemic has become a standard part of VA practice. We are using population health tools across many disease management areas to alert us to opportunities for outreach both to veterans and healthcare teams to offer care.

How Knowledge Translation conducted through face to face visits by pharmacist across the system transformed how people felt about naloxone and their role in prescribing is key to why VHA has invested in outreach to clinical staff for important safety initiatives for veterans.

One might ask what is different about VA's approach to SUD care and our guest this week will share what we are currently seeing as well as the vision of No Wrong Door built through expanding SUD expertise across the organization and infrastructure through the stepped care model for SUD care.

High Risk Population and Action Oriented, VA OEND National Coordinators Insight into VA's Approach to reaching this important population at a very high-risk time of quarantine. Overdose prevention is more important than ever with challenges in accessing healthcare and disruption daily structure of recovery for many veterans suffering with SUD.