SPOKANE, Wash. — Compassionate Addiction Treatment was a participating site in the “Community-Based Medications First for Opioid Use Disorder – Care Utilization and Mortality Outcomes” research project through the University of Washington. 

CAT provides walk-in same-day appointments and prescriptions for Buprenorphine for people with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Easy access is imperative, and often difficult to access, for people with OUD who are also experiencing homelessness.

As a forward-thinking organization, CAT provided this service before entering into collaboration with the Med First research team. Thanks to this collaboration, additional scientific data supports the work that we do as best practice in supporting people on their self-identified path in recovery.

Research Purpose: A large treatment gap exists for people who could benefit from medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). People OUD accessing services in harm reduction and community-based organizations often have difficulty engaging in MOUD at opioid treatment programs and traditional health care settings. We conducted a study to test the impacts of a community-based medications first model of care in six Washington (WA) State communities that provided drop-in MOUD access.

Research Conclusion: Findings indicated a significant increase in MOUD for the intervention group and a lower mortality rate relative to the comparison group. The COVID-19 epidemic and rapid increase in non-pharmaceutical-fentanyl may have lessened the intervention impact as measured in the cohort analysis. Study findings support expanding access to a third model of low barrier MOUD care alongside opioid treatment programs and traditional health care settings.