Some hospitals provide a full continuum of care to smooth the path to recovery. At UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, that path starts in the emergency department, where, with the help of its one-click tool, staff can see a patient’s history of pain medication prescriptions and determine if the individual is high risk. Should abuse be suspected, doctors can adjust their treatment plan accordingly, say by prescribing someone fewer pills and less often.
“We want to identify them before they switch to IV drug use,” Hoppe says. “That’s where they fall off the cliff.”
Then, patients have several treatment options, based on their addiction severity. One is the Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation, or CeDAR, the inpatient residential facility that treats adults and their families for up to 90 days and includes detox, therapy, 12-step groups and psychiatric care. Once in recovery, patients can transition to outpatient community programs that combine medication-based approaches with behavioral treatments to help them maintain sobriety.