Research Project
Project POINT: Effectiveness and Scalability of an Overdose Survivor Intervention
- Principal Investigator
- Swartz, James A
- Research Area(s)
- Research & Sponsored Projects
- Funding Source
- Indiana University
Abstract
Project Planned Outreach, Intervention, Naloxone, and Treatment (POINT), is an ED-based intervention aimed at providing opioid overdose survivors with naloxone and connecting them to evidence-based medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD; e.g., methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone). Project POINT formally launched in February 2016 as a quality improvement initiative in the ED of Eskenazi Hospital located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Eskenazi is the safety net hospital for Marion County, Indiana, which, at the time POINT began, had a higher non-fatal opioid overdose rate than the national average (131 vs. 93 per 100,000). POINT has two overarching goals: (1) provide patients revived from a non-fatal overdose with access to naloxone and (2) connect those same patients with long-term substance use disorder treatment—with the ideal being evidence-based MOUD. The program works with all patients following a harm reduction approach. As such, it provides patients with naloxone and supportive services regardless of their initial willingness to begin treatment. Additionally, POINT has a formal relationship with an MOUD provider who implemented walk-in hours for POINT patients that effectively reduced the treatment initiation wait time from more than a week to 0–4 days depending on their ED discharge time.