GIM Observes International Overdose Awareness Day
In honor of International Overdose Awareness Day, members of GIM’s Office-Based Addiction Treatment team and the Grayken Center for Addiction gathered with officials from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and others to plant more than 20,000 purple flags to memorialize lives lost to overdoses.
The Grayken Center for Addiction Training and Technical Assistance provides education, support and capacity building to community health centers and other health care and social service providers on best practices caring for patients with substance use disorders. Nationally recognized and nationally replicated, the OBAT program has been treats patients using a collaborative care model that relies on nurse care managers to ensure delivery of high quality addiction treatment while effectively and efficiently utilizing the time of physicians waivered to prescribe buprenorphine.
“For the first time, we are seeing the overdose curve bend sharply downward — a sign that our shared commitment to treatment and harm reduction is truly making a difference,” said Miriam Komaromy, MD, Medical Director of BMC’s Grayken Center for Addiction, at the event. “And yet, even in this progress, we carry deep grief for the lives still being lost to senseless, preventable overdoses.”
September is National Recovery Month, a time to “promote and support new evidence-based treatment and recovery practices, the nation’s strong and proud recovery community, and the dedication of service providers and communities who make recovery possible,” as described by SAMHSA. Grayken and OBAT teams are honoring the call to act through several events on the medical campus, including talks, recovery stories, wellness activities, and celebrations for staff, families, and patients.