Cooper medical school granted $3.5M for opiate program

Cooper Medical School of Rowan University recently received a $3.5 million state grant to expand programs that treat patients with opiate-use disorder.

Along with Cooper University Health Care’s Emergency Medical Services, the funds will help increase the number of paramedic systems in New Jersey offering buprenorphine therapy for patients who overdose on opiates.

Funding was provided by the New Jersey Department of Human Services’ Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services via the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Why buprenorphine?

Dr. Gerard Carroll is an associate professor of emergency medicine and the EMS fellowship director at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, as well as an emergency medicine physician and division head of EMS and disaster medicine at Cooper Health.

“People with opioid use disorder who have overdosed have a life-threatening illness, with an annual mortality rate similar to patients who have had a heart attack or a stroke, so rapid intervention is lifesaving,” Carroll said in a June 25 statement.

Carroll explained how buprenorphine therapy can help these patients. While naloxone is a medicine that can reverse the immediate effects of an opioid overdose, following that with buprenorphine allows patients to avoid withdrawal symptoms, inhibits their ability to overdose for the next 24 hours, and makes them more receptive to long-term treatment.

Patients initially treated with buprenorphine are six times more likely to enroll in a recovery program, Carroll added.

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In case you missed it

As of July 1, Cape Regional Health System is part of Cooper University Health Care. Click here to read more about the merger.

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The medical school faculty and Cooper will partner with two other regional paramedic systems in New Jersey to help implement a buprenorphine program. Cooper did not identify those systems.

According to the health care network,Cooper’s Mobile Intensive Care paramedics were the first anywhere to administer buprenorphine in the field after an overdose, which Johns Hopkins confirmed.

Cooper University Health Care has provided EMS to Camden since 2016. In January, the team announced another groundbreaking initiative: participating in a national study comparing the effects of two intravenous pain medications, fentanyl and low-dose ketamine, onseverely injured trauma patients.

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