Initiating patients identified with opioid use disorder in hospital settings onto buprenorphine is a relatively new strategy to prevent overdose. While the literature is beginning to amass showing the effectiveness of this strategy for initiating people into treatment, a dearth of data to describe how well people are maintained in treatment remains. The current research project aims to 1) develop an intervention to enhance engagement and retention in treatment for individuals with opioid use disorder who initiate buprenorphine at Denver Health and 2) assess acceptability, feasibility, and initial efficacy of an intervention to enhance engagement and retention in treatment for individuals with opioid disorder compared to usual care.
The overarching goal of the study is to develop, pilot, and evaluate an intervention that aims to retain patients who initiate buprenorphine at Denver Health in ongoing treatment for opioid use disorder.