A new Essential Hospitals Institute report details how essential hospitals enhanced efforts to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) with social medicine through a grant-funded learning collaborative.
Lessons Learned in Treating Opioid Use Disorder at Essential Hospitals highlights how multidisciplinary teams delivered OUD care with a focus on addressing patients’ social and environmental needs. It provides insights on best practices for patient screenings and connection to social support, as well as strategies for managing operational barriers and addressing the rapidly evolving drug supply that creates enormous challenges for treatment and recovery efforts.
The collaborative detailed in the report is the culmination of three the Institute convened under this project, supported by the CVS Health Foundation.
From October 2024 to October 2025, collaborative members attended monthly virtual training sessions focused on sustainability planning, leadership communication, culture change, and building an institutional framework for integrating social medicine into OUD care. The report also shares insights from two in-person sessions: one at Denver Health, focused on the health system’s programs at the intersection of addiction care, housing instability, and harm reduction; and another at Jefferson Health and Temple Health—two essential hospitals providing addiction care and wraparound services to meet the needs of patients with OUD and other substance use disorders in Philadelphia.
This report features programs from:
- Alameda Health System
- Bergen New Bridge Medical Center
- ChristianaCare
- Denver Health
- Jefferson Health
- Los Angeles County Department of Health Services
- Orlando Health
- Parkland Health
- Temple Health
- The MetroHealth System
- UVA Health
- WVU Medicine
- Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
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