Page 31 - Christiana Care Focus

emergency department, the number of engagements conducted each year has grown from 2,000 to 3,000. The program has served more than 10,000 patients since it began in 2008.
Project Engage has collaborated with health systems in other states, including Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, to develop similar peer recovery programs.
White House taps Dr. Terry Horton
800 patients
were successfully connected with treatment for substance use disorder last year by the Project Engage team.
Most recently, Project Engage’s Tanya Bracey, clinical program manager, John Czartorijskij, lead engagement specialist, spoke at a West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources conference focused on training and networking for peer support workers. Their breakout session on “Responding to OD Survivors” was on an agenda that drew some 300 attendees.
“Our partnership with Christiana Care has been instrumental in our programs’ progress and success,” said Marsha
A. Dadisman, state opioid response engagement coordinator for the West Virginia Bureau for Behavioral Health. “Through Christiana Care’s shared experiences, we learned better ways to interact with hospital medical staff, and how to successfully recruit, train and supervise peer recovery coaches. We also learned new strategies to promote positive changes in culture and attitude toward recovery.”
The Addiction Policy Forum, headquar- tered in Washington, D.C., with resources and services in every state, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating addiction as a major health problem. 
Project Engage again takes national stage for success in substance abuse intervention
Terry Horton, M.D., FACP, founder and medical director of Christiana Care’s Project Engage, participated by invitation in “Building the Addiction Medicine Workforce: Giving Americans Access to the Care They Need,” a special session convened by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) at the White House.
The ONDCP brought together more than 50 national medical, health systems and insurance leaders in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the American College of Academic Addiction Medicine. They discussed strategies to expand workforce capacity to address substance use and ways to increase access to treatment across health care systems.
“Christiana Care was invited to participate because our addiction-related initiatives are well regarded nationally, and we continue to be considered as leaders in this field owing to our proposed development of an addiction medicine fellowship,” said Dr. Horton.
An award-winning, pioneering early intervention for people with substance use disorder, Project Engage is designed to help hospital patients who may be struggling with alcohol or drug use.
Project Engage integrates peers in recovery, who are called engagement specialists, into the clinical setting in the hospital to meet with patients at their bedside about their alcohol or drug use. The program identifies individuals at their reachable moment in the hospital and acts on it.
More than a decade after its launch, Project Engage includes a team of 15 caregivers, in partnership with Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. The program has served more than 10,000 patients since it began in 2008. A recent study shows a 59% reduction in readmission rates for emergency department patients connected to substance use disorder treatment. 
for national addiction forum
National medical, health system and insurance leaders joined members of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the American College of Academic Addiction Medicine to in a special session to discuss strategies to expand workforce capacity to address substance use and ways to increase access to treatment across health care systems.
FOCUS • SUMMER 2019 29
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