By Mountain Family Health Centers
Mountain Family Health Centers is thrilled to receive grant-funded assistance for implementing an innovative approach to treating opioid use disorder (OUD). Led by Oyen Hoffman, Behavioral Health Provider and Substance Abuse Program Supervisor, Mountain Family has noted that many of our behavioral health patients also struggle with opioid use disorder. In order to be effective, treatment needs to address opioid use as well as behavioral health issues.
A central approach is medication-assisted treatment, or MAT. Grant funding will now allow Mountain Family to receive technical assistance and other services from the organization State Targeted Response Technical Assistance (STR-TA) for implementing medication-assisted treatment. STR-TA provides coaching for health centers implementing medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders. Since its inception in May 2018, the organization has helped Federally Qualified Health Centers regionally and nationally, including Salud Family Health Centers in Trinidad.
“Colorado is on par with the rest of the nation as far as opioid use disorders and overdose deaths are concerned,” Hoffman says. “What this means is that overdose deaths in Colorado amounts to two fully-loaded jumbo jet crashes killing everyone on board every year. Opioid use disorder is a treatable illness—a mixed medical and behavioral health approach to be most successful. We at Mountain Family Health Centers recognize this need and consider this as our ethical responsibility to treat with our new MAT services.”
You can read more about Mountain Family’s efforts to address opioid use disorder here, here, and here.