Authors of a Health Affairs article are touting the “Cascade of Care” framework used for HIV treatment as a model for treating opioid addiction. They write:
“Like HIV, opioid use disorder is a chronic, relapsing, often fatal disorder that typically requires long-term medication treatment to be effective. Similar to the goal of achieving HIV viral suppression, combating opioid overdose requires success along sequential stages, from screening and detection of opioid use disorder, to linkage to care, to medication initiation, and long-term retention.
‘The HIV Cascade of Care has served as an organizing framework by codifying quality outcome measures at each stage along the cascade, targeting interventions to overcome barriers, and comparing effectiveness of interventions across populations and settings.”
They propose these fundamental approaches:
- Linkage to care among those diagnosed.
- Medication initiation among those entering care.
- Retention for at least six months among those initiating medication.
- Continuous abstinence among those retained.
To read the article, please hit this link.
