Interrupted Time Series Analysis: Patient Characteristics and Rates of Opioid-Use-Disorder-Related Emergency Department Visits in the Los Angeles County Public Hospital System during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to disruptions in care for vulnerable patients, in particular patients with opioid use disorder (OUD). We aimed to examine OUD-related ED visits before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and determine if patient characteristics for OUD-related ED visits changed in the context of the pandemic. We examined all visits to the three public safety net hospital EDs in Los Angeles County from April 2019 to February 2021.

Effect of Didactic Training on Barriers and Biases to Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder: Meeting the Ongoing Needs of Patients with Opioid Use Disorder in the Emergency Department during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In the wake of COVID-19, morbidity and mortality due to Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is beginning to emerge as a second wave of deaths of despair. Medication assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder MAT delivered by Emergency Medicine (EM) providers can decrease mortality due to OUD; however, there are numerous cited barriers to MAT delivery. We examined the impact of MAT training on these barriers among EM residents in an urban, tertiary care facility with a large EM residency.

Discordance in categorization of acute-on-chronic liver failure in the United Network for Organ Sharing database.

Background & Aims: Studies regarding acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) among liver transplant (LT) candidates from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database are being used to inform LT policy changes worldwide. We assessed the validity of identifying ACLF in UNOS.

Methods: We performed stratified random sampling among 3 US LT centers between 2013-2019 to obtain a representative patient sample across ACLF grades.

High-Dose Buprenorphine Induction in the Emergency Department for Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder.

Importance: Emergency departments (EDs) sporadically use a high-dose buprenorphine induction strategy for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) in response to the increasing potency of the illicit opioid drug supply and commonly encountered delays in access to follow-up care.

Objective: To examine the safety and tolerability of high-dose (>12 mg) buprenorphine induction for patients with OUD presenting to an ED.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this case series of ED encounters, data were manually abstracted from electronic health records for all ED patients with OUD treated with buprenorphine at a single, urban, safety-net hospital in Oakland, California, for the calendar year 2018.

Treatment of opioid and alcohol withdrawal in a cohort of emergency department patients.

Background: The safety of combining buprenorphine with a benzodiazepine or barbiturate in the treatment of concurrent alcohol and opioid withdrawal has not been well established. In this study we examine a cohort of patients treated with buprenorphine and phenobarbital or benzodiazepines for co-occurring opioid and alcohol withdrawal.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of ED patients treated for opioid and alcohol withdrawal from January through December 2018.