LEVERAGING IMPLEMENTATION SCIENCE FOR OPIOID TREATMENT

Renee Cloutier

On average, it takes between 17 and 20 years for evidence-based practice to be translated into everyday practice. To Renee Cloutier, that’s way too long. Cloutier is an assistant professor in the School of Medicine whose work focuses on substance use and overdose prevention. 

One arm of Cloutier’s research applies implementation science to bring effective opioid treatment to patients more quickly. Her current five-year National Institute on Drug Abuse funded grant aims to use measurement-based care in 20 opioid treatment programs across Pennsylvania, including several sites in Pittsburgh. 

Evidence from 20 years ago may not be relevant to some of today’s issues. For example, research published in 2004 did not anticipate the past decade’s explosion in fentanyl overdose deaths.

“There are a lot of major changes that that have occurred since COVID that are uniquely relevant to the opioid treatment program context,” says Cloutier. “This includes flexibility around methadone, take-home doses and telehealth that makes implementation research in the opioid treatment program context especially important.” 

She and collaborators are working with Pennsylvania’s Centers of Excellence for Opioid Use Disorder, which aim to engage and retain participants through care coordination and supporting various social determinants of health. The goal is to make treatment more immediately available and relevant to the patient’s needs by “integrating and leveraging the existing infrastructure and support that already exist,” says Cloutier.

An additional objective of her work is reducing the paperwork and administrative burdens that drag down both patients and providers, such as lengthy or redundant assessments that patients feel are not used to guide their care. 

“Everyone wants to see improved quality of care that does not only help keep people alive, but eventually thrive,” explains Cloutier. “By centering data and resources around patient needs and how support provider teams meet those needs, we can achieve the common vision of improving the quality and impact of the patient care.”