San Diego and UC San Diego Health expand opioid treatment program
How did your country report this? Share your view in the comments.
Diverging Reports Breakdown
San Diego and UC San Diego Health expand opioid treatment program
The city of San Diego plans to direct another $1.1 million of its allocated opioid-manufacturer settlement to UC San Diego Health to expand its treatment program. A TST pilot that launched a year ago with a $350,000 allocation from the 2023 settlement provides substance use treatment at emergency departments and helps patients get connected to community-based recovery services when they’re discharged. The expanded transition support team will spend time in the three emergency departments at the Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla, Hillcrest Medical Center and East Campus Medical Center, as well as local shelters and homeless encampments.
The city of San Diego plans to direct another $1.1 million of its allocated opioid-manufacturer settlement to UC San Diego Health to expand its treatment program and follow patients as they are connected to community-based recovery services
Stream San Diego News for free, 24/7, wherever you are with NBC 7. WATCH HERE WATCH HERE
On Friday, San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert announced the city has allocated the funds for the Transition Support Team (TST) Pilot Program.
“The people coming into our emergency rooms are not statistics,” Von Wilpert said. “They’re sons, they’re daughters, they’re mothers, they’re fathers, they’re friends, and right now, too many of them are getting discharged without any solutions, any next step, any options to connect them to treatment. That’s not a system of care. That’s a cycle in a loop of readmission. So this investment will help change that.”
Get top local San Diego stories delivered to you every morning with our News Headlines newsletter. SIGN UP SIGN UP
A TST pilot that launched a year ago with a $350,000 allocation from the 2023 settlement provides substance use treatment at emergency departments and helps patients get connected to community-based recovery services when they’re discharged.
Since the beginning of the pilot, UC San Diego Health Chief of Clinical Psychiatry Dr. Steve Koh said, the provider has been able to help about 120 people a month. He said the additional funding will allow them to double that number.
“The need is quite high,” Koh said. “The data has shown that, over the last few years, the overall mortality from opiate deaths has gone down but the usage has gone up, and we’re seeing more and more of these patients coming to the hospital’s emergency departments.”
Koh said the goal is to keep people out of the emergency room.
“It’s not simply enough to support these patients while they’re in a hospital setting like this,” Koh said. “We need to actually treat them and intervene before they get to that stage, and so this expansion’s exciting because that’s what we’re about to do.”
The expanded transition support team will spend time in the three emergency departments at the Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla, Hillcrest Medical Center and East Campus Medical Center, as well as local shelters and homeless encampments.
Von Wilpert said her goal is to eventually expand the program to other hospitals throughout the city.