A new pilot project modelled after a successful Vancouver-made HIV/AIDS strategy will have teams of medical professionals and other front-line staff regularly check in on thousands of people in the city on opioid-substitution therapy with the goal of making sure they don’t miss a day of treatment.
The Best-practice is Oral Opioid agoniSt Therapy Collaborative – or the BOOST Collaborative – was developed by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health. It is the first program of its kind in Canada and is the latest effort to turn the tide on an opioid crisis that is projected to kill 1,500 people in British Columbia this year alone.
Rolando Barrios, assistant director at the BC-CfE and senior medical director at Vancouver Coastal Health, estimates the program will reach about 3,000 patients in Vancouver currently receiving suboptimal treatment.
“However, the aim is not only to improve these outcomes for people known to the teams, but also to ensure access to these services for other patients that may need treatment but are not currently on treatment,” Dr. Barrios said, noting that could be another 2,000 people.
Beginning Friday, about 20 teams of three people each – comprising physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, counsellors and others – will work together to make sure patients are receiving their medication. If a patient misses his daily dose of methadone, for example, his pharmacist would alert the team assigned to him, which would then phone or visit him. Continued treatment would still hinge on the consent of the patient.