Delaware hospital’s bedside addiction intervention program gets White House officials’ attention

One hospital’s program that puts peer counselors at the bedside of patients with addiction and substance abuse problems has earned it an invitation to the White House. Leaders from Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Delaware, were asked to present their early addiction intervention program, Project Engage, to officials from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Terry Horton, M.D., chief of Christiana Care’s Division of Addiction Medicine, established the program in 2008 as a way to catch hospitalized addicts at a moment when they might be most open to deciding to stop abusing drugs or alcohol. The hospital employs health care professionals known as engagement specialists, who are typically past addicts themselves making them “peers in recovery.” The engagement specialists meet with patients with identified substance abuse problems in the hospital room and help the patients access resources in the community that can support them in breaking their addictions and becoming substance free.

“Our engagement specialists meet with patients to offer support and to share their own struggles with addiction and how they were able to overcome it,” stated Dr. Horton in a press release. “That empathy and that support from an engagement specialist is often the pivotal action that can motivate a patient to finally believe they can break free of their addiction, even if they have struggled with it for years or decades.”

Engagement specialists are used at both Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital. So far, they have reached nearly 3,000 patients at inpatient units and emergency departments, according to Christiana Care Health System.  The program has led to an increase in patients who enroll in community-based drug treatment programs, a reduction in 30-day readmissions among patients with substance abuse problems and an average savings of $6,000 per patients with whom engagement specialists have intervened.

It is the latter financial savings and how the program meets the “triple aim” of improving patient experience and population health while reducing health care costs that has really helped it stand out. Addiction to prescription painkillers and the associated resurgence in the use of heroin has been of increasing concern in recent years and the Christiana model could be one way hospitals can help address addiction more effectively.

Dr. Horton presented the data from Project Engage together with Claudine Jurkovitz, M.D., MPH, director of operations for the Christiana Care Center for Outcomes Research, and senior physician scientist with Christiana Care’s Value Institute, on Friday, the health system said.

Non-profit Christiana Care Health System says it is the 12th largest East Coast health system in terms of admissions. It includes two hospitals with a combined 1,100 patient beds, a home health care service, preventive medicine, rehabilitation services, a network of primary care physicians and a range of outpatient services.