Evaluation of Quick Response Team: A Community Based Model to Provide Personalized Services for Individuals with Opioid Use Disorder.

Abstract

Background: The opioid crisis has significantly affected the lives of individuals and families in Huntington, West Virginia. To address this issue, public health and professional organizations in Huntington collaborated to implement a Quick Response Team (QRT) tasked with connecting individuals with substance use disorder to medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment or recovery service providers alongside the provision of other services that include health education, training on naloxone administration, etc. The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of this team in the reduction of overdoses in Huntington.

Methods: An interrupted time series analysis using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) was conducted to investigate the change in suspected overdose cases during intervention period between December 2017 and June 2021 compared to the pre-intervention period between October 2014 and November 2017 in Huntington.

Results: During a 31-month period, the team contacted a total of 727 men and 443 women with substance use disorder including those that have experienced an overdose and facilitated connections for 335 individuals to medication for opioid use disorder treatment and recovery programs through warm handoff referrals. Additionally, ARIMA model estimated an immediate decline of 44 suspected overdose 911 calls (p-value = 0.00002, 95% CI, - 23 to - 64) in the month following the intervention and subsequently, a reduction of 4 suspected overdose 911 calls per month (p-value =0.07, 95% CI, 0 to - 7).

Conclusion: Quick Response Teams offer a potential approach to addressing substance use disorder and may be adaptable to various community settings.