Building a hospital-based addiction medicine consultation service in Vancouver, Canada: the path taken and lessons learned.

Background And Aims: To improve evidence-based addiction care in acute care settings, many hospitals across North America are developing an inpatient addiction medicine consultation service (AMCS). St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada houses a large interdisciplinary AMCS. This study aimed to: (1) describe the current model of clinical care and its evolution over time; (2) evaluate requests for an AMCS consultation over time; (3) highlight the established clinical training opportunities and educational curriculum and (4) provide some lessons learned.

Sustained-release Oral Hydromorphone for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder.

Objectives: In 2017, almost 50,000 Americans and over 4000 Canadians died from an opioid overdose. Accordingly, an urgent need exists to improve access to evidence-based treatment for opioid addiction, and also to develop and evaluate alternative treatment options for opioid use disorder (OUD). We present a case of a patient with OUD who was successfully switched and managed on oral hydromorphone after development of a prolonged QTc interval on methadone.

Hospital-Based Addiction Medicine Healthcare Providers: High Demand, Short Supply.

: Substance use disorders account for a significant burden of disease and place an enormous strain on the health care system in the United States and beyond. Despite death tolls climbing, a myriad of evidence-based medications exist to effectively treat many substance use disorders including nicotine, alcohol, and opioid use disorders. To date, hospitals have largely been overlooked as a setting ripe for the delivery of specialized addiction care.