A $1.5 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is enabling clinicians in the College of Medicine to undertake an ambitious project to address the opioid epidemic in Philadelphia, where 1,217 residents died from unintentional drug overdoses in 2017.
With the funds, the College of Medicine will create a Center of Excellence providing healthcare for opioid use disorder.
The center will expand addiction treatment services and extend opioid use disorder educational programs to all Drexel health care providers, among other initiatives.
By 2020, the Drexel clinicians are seeking to engage at least 300 new individuals in medication- assisted treatment, to reduce by half the number of patients in treatment who use illicit opioids, and to reduce the number of opioids prescribed by Drexel physicians.
“As a large, community- focused academic health center, with 490,000 patient visits in 2017, Drexel Medicine has a significant opportunity to expand opioid use disorder prevention and treatment,” says principal investigator Barbara Schindler, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics.