With five national sites participating in a current clinical study to improve the treatment of substance abuse disorders in primary care, the National Institute of Health recently commended Harris Health for successfully recruiting nearly a third of the 300 study participants. Additionally, the agency praised the system’s outpatient treatment program as a model for effectively treating hundreds of patients with substance abuse disorders – primarily opioid addiction and stimulant addiction.
In all, Harris Health enrolled 87 participants for the study headed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a division of NIH.
“Harris Health shares a vision to provide patients with the most effective care available and having our patients included in the national bench-marking research will only help all communities around the country,” says Matthew Schlueter, PhD, RN, chief nursing officer, Ambulatory Care Services, Harris Health. “Thanks to our academic partners from UTHealth Houston (McGovern Medical School) and their commitment to this program, patients with substance use disorders are getting the care they need in our outpatient health centers and clinics.”
Jennifer LaHue, MBA, RN, project manager and site principal investigator, and director, Office Based Addiction Treatment (OBAT), Harris Health, credits the success of recruiting patients thanks to a targeted approach using physician and staff referrals, word-of-mouth and in-person recruitment, connections by telephone or virtual, community outreach events to homeless shelters and promotion of the study though flyers and information booths.
“We are meeting people where they are and making it easy for them to connect to services and treatment that can help them overcome their substance abuse disorders,” she says.
The team also has a three-prong approach to getting staff buy-in and support that includes regular updates and communications with leadership, mid-level clinical management and front-line staff that include physicians, nurses and auxiliary support.
“Our executive leadership want to know that our program strategically aligns with the system’s goals and objectives, our clinical management want to ensure operational feasibility, while our front-line want to ensure patient care is appropriate,” LaHue explains.
While recruitment for the substance abuse disorder study has been positive, so too have the results of patients in the OBAT program who are successfully kicking their addiction.
“When I started, I was addicted to cocaine, alcohol, and opioids. After my initial visit, …. I got all my appointments and medications that I needed,” writes an anonymous OBAT participant. “I wasn’t working when I started and was at as far as the bottom went, but when I got my medications, I was feeling better than I have in a very long time. With everyone’s help, I got all my medical issues fixed and was able to get my addictions in check.”
The patient is now working and managing their life as a productive member of society, LaHue says.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics, more than 110,000 people died from fentanyl (synthetic opioids) drug overdose in 2022. This represented a dramatic increase from 57,000 deaths in 2020 and 71,000 deaths in 2021.
“It is a unique test of a collaborative care model that has strong potential to be an effective and feasible approach to treating polysubstance use in primary care,” writes Jennifer McNeely, MD, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and lead study investigator. “We are hearing very positive reports from patients and clinical staff and are looking forward to finishing the last year of patient participant follow-up and receiving the primary outcome results.”
Mohammad Zare, MD, medical director, OBAT, and assistant chief of staff, Ambulatory Care Services, Harris Health, and professor and vice chair, Department of Family Medicine, UTHealth Houston, credits the holistic team approach with the success of recruitment for the NIH study and the OBAT program.
“Patients are the center of our focus,” he says. “They come to us needing help to overcome their addictions and we’re here to help them in the process. Having a dedicated program for them with dedicated physicians, nurses and community health workers demonstrates our commitment to helping them when they need us most.”
