Publications by authors named "Donna Beers"

Background: Implementation of office-based addiction treatment (OBAT) by nurse care managers increases overall use of OUD medication, but it is unknown whether it increases treatment duration among treated patients.

Methods: The Primary Care Opioid Use Disorders Treatment (PROUD) trial was a pragmatic, cluster-randomized trial testing whether implementation of OBAT increased OUD treatment in 12 primary care clinics in 6 systems. One of 2 clinics per system was randomized to implement OBAT (intervention), the other, usual care (UC).

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Background & Objective: Mobile substance use treatment units are effective approaches to increase treatment access and reduce barriers to opioid use disorder (OUD) care. However, little is known about the economic costs of maintaining and operating these units. This study aimed to estimate the economic costs of starting and maintaining mobile units providing harm reduction, overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND), and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD).

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines a community-based intervention aimed at reducing opioid-related overdose deaths by increasing the adoption of evidence-based practices including overdose education and naloxone distribution, medication treatment for opioid use disorder, and prescription safety.
  • In a cluster-randomized trial, 67 communities across Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio were assigned to either receive the intervention or serve as a control group during a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in fentanyl overdoses.
  • Results showed no significant difference in opioid-related overdose death rates between the intervention and control groups, with both averaging similar rates, indicating that the community-engaged strategies did not have a measurable impact during the study period.
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Background: Preventing progression to moderate or severe opioid use disorder (OUD) among people who exhibit risky opioid use behavior that does not meet criteria for treatment with opioid agonists or antagonists (subthreshold OUD) is poorly understood. The Subthreshold Opioid Use Disorder Prevention (STOP) Trial is designed to study the efficacy of a collaborative care intervention to reduce risky opioid use and to prevent progression to moderate or severe OUD in adult primary care patients with subthreshold OUD.

Methods: The STOP trial is a cluster randomized controlled trial, randomized at the PCP level, conducted in 5 distinct geographic sites.

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In 2020, Boston Medical Center and the Grayken Center for Addiction launched an addiction nursing fellowship to enhance registered nurses' knowledge and skills related to the care of patients with substance use disorders and to improve patient experience and outcomes. This paper describes the development and essential components of this innovative fellowship, to our knowledge the first of its kind in the United States, with the goal of facilitating replication in other hospital settings.

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Unlabelled: The Helping End Addictions Long Term (HEALing) Communities Study (HCS) seeks to significantly reduce overdose deaths in 67 highly impacted communities in Kentucky (KY), Massachusetts (MA), New York (NY), and Ohio (OH) by implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) to reduce overdose deaths. The Opioid-overdose Reduction Continuum of Care Approach (ORCCA) organizes EBP strategies under three menus: Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND), Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD), and Safer Prescribing and Dispensing Practices (SPDP). The ORCCA sets requirements for strategy selection but allows flexibility to address community needs.

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Background: The number of opioid-involved overdose deaths in the United States remains a national crisis. The HEALing Communities Study (HCS) will test whether Communities That HEAL (CTH), a community-engaged intervention, can decrease opioid-involved deaths in intervention communities (n = 33), relative to wait-list communities (n = 34), from four states. The CTH intervention seeks to facilitate widespread implementation of three evidence-based practices (EBPs) with the potential to reduce opioid-involved overdose fatalities: overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND), effective delivery of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and safer opioid analgesic prescribing.

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Importance: Prescription opioid misuse is a national crisis. Few interventions have improved adherence to opioid-prescribing guidelines.

Objective: To determine whether a multicomponent intervention, Transforming Opioid Prescribing in Primary Care (TOPCARE; http://mytopcare.

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Background: Prescription opioid misuse is a significant public health problem as well as a patient safety concern. Primary care providers (PCPs) are the leading prescribers of opioids for chronic pain, yet few PCPs follow standard practice guidelines regarding assessment and monitoring. This cluster randomized controlled trial will determine whether four implementation strategies; nurse care management, use of a patient registry, academic detailing, and electronic tools, will increase PCP adherence to chronic opioid therapy guidelines and reduce opioid misuse among patients, relative to electronic tools alone.

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Little is known about variability in primary care providers' (PCPs) adherence to opioid-monitoring guidelines for patients. We examined variability of adherence to monitoring guidelines among PCPs and ascertained the relationship between PCP adherence and opioid misuse by their patients. We included primary care patients receiving long-term opioids (≥3 prescriptions within 6 months) for chronic noncancer pain and PCPs with ≥4 eligible patients.

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Background: Many opioid-dependent patients do not receive care for addiction issues when hospitalized for other medical problems. Based on 3 years of clinical practice, we report the Transitional Opioid Program (TOP) experience using hospitalization as a "reachable moment" to identify and link opioid-dependent persons to addiction treatment from medical care.

Methods: A program nurse identified, assessed, and enrolled hospitalized, out-of-treatment opioid-dependent drug users based on their receipt of methadone during hospitalization.

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