Bayshore Medical Center Provides Bedside Opioid Recovery Coaches

HOLMDEL, NJ — It's a familiar tale to anyone living in the Bayshore region: A person overdoses on heroin or another opioid, and needs to be revived by police using Narcan. But what happens from there?

Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel recently launched its Opioid Overdose Recovery Program, which was designed to help combat drug addiction in the Bayshore region.

Once a patient who has been revived by Narcan comes into Bayshore, a call goes out to a designated Opioid Overdose Recovery Coach, who is trained to work with people battling addiction. The Recovery Coach is deployed to the hospital, where they offer a bedside intervention in an attempt to convince the patient to enter an appropriate treatment program.

“Studies show that if a patient enters a treatment facility directly from a hospital setting, they have around a 70 percent recovery success rate,” said Rajiv Prasad, M.D., medical director of the emergency department at Bayshore Medical Center, part of Hackensack Meridian Health. “Patients, who elect to return home, often find themselves in the same situation again, or at minimum, continuing to use on a regular basis.”

Several other hospitals in New Jersey have received grants for similar bedside coaches, including Jersey Shore University Medical Center and Ocean Medical Center. The grants are given to hospitals with the highest incidences of overdoses. Monmouth County law enforcement battle addiction on a daily basis. In 2016, there were 164 opioid related deaths in Monmouth County.

“Opioid addiction is a big problem in this area,” says Chief John Mioduszewski of the Holmdel Township Police. “The opportunity to connect the hospital to this program has the ultimate goal of reducing drug use in the Bayshore area of Monmouth County. Programs like this makes every local chief optimistic that we will see a decline in this epidemic in the near future.”

Since implementing the program on July 1, Bayshore Medical Center has provided 34 bedside interventions by the OORP Recovery Coaches, of which 64 percent have entered into an appropriate treatment/recovery program. The ultimate goal of the OORP program is to get these patients into long-term recovery.

The program will be expanding to more hospitals in the near future. It's made possible through a state grant and provided by the RWJBarnabas Health Institute for Prevention. The OORP grant is funded by the Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse and the Department of Children and Families. The program was initially offered at select hospitals in the five counties with the highest overdose statistics, including Hackensack MeridianHealth Jersey Shore University Medical Center and Hackensack Meridian HealthOcean Medical Center. The OORP program was expanded this summer to include Bayshore Medical Center.

“There is a large need for this program throughout the state, but particularly in Monmouth and Ocean counties,” says Connie Greene, vice president for the RWJBarnabas Health Institute for Prevention. “Although we are still limited in funding, the program is set to expand to all 21 counties in the near future thanks to additional funding.”

“This is a great program and we are thankful to be included in it,” says Dr. Prasad. “I’m hopeful that there will come a day when it’s no longer needed, but for now, it’s an incredible resource that we are hoping will help to reduce the amount of overdoses we see at Bayshore Medical Center, and that my colleagues see at hospitals throughout the county.”

Photo used with permission from Bayshore Medical Center Hackensack Meridian Health