Reachable Moment: Hospital-Based Interventions

Patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) frequently utilize high-cost hospital services and have had rising rates of morbidity and mortality in the past two decades. Patients with OUD frequently experience untreated withdrawal and other poor hospital-related outcomes. Further, hospitalization is an often-missed reachable moment to engage patients with OUD in harm reduction services and to begin treatment, including medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). This chapter outlines various strategies and current best practices, including formal interdisciplinary addiction consult services, which can be used to engage and treat hospitalized patients with OUD. In addition, this chapter addresses some of the ongoing challenges in providing high-quality care to inpatients with OUD, including stigma, structural barriers, and commonly held myths, all of which impede optimal care for these patients.