Increasing North Carolina's Workforce Capacity for Prescribing Buprenorphine Products

BACKGROUND Inadequate access to opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment is a public health concern. Rates of opioid-related poisoning deaths are increasing in North Carolina and access to OUD treatment is especially sparse in rural areas. DEA-X-waivered providers that can prescribe buprenorphine as a medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) play an essential role in treating OUD. Increased workforce capacity to treat OUD in an evidence-based, equitable, and patient-centered way is needed. Gaps persist in continuing professional education and academic training.METHODS Description of an interdisciplinary training team effort to engage medical residencies and advanced practice provider (APP) programs across North Carolina in a set of subsidized trainings about substance use disorder treatment and medication-assisted treatment (MAT), with the goal of increasing capacity to administer MOUD, based on each program's needs. Uptake was independently evaluated.RESULTS Engagement exceeded initial goals: 72 unique trainings related to MAT were administered to 1512 providers from 30 residency and 7 APP programs. By the end of the grant period, 902 participants completed a training required to obtain a DEA-X waiver. Evaluation of training uptake identified facilitators and barriers specific to residents and APP trainees.LIMITATIONS Limitations included difficulty coordinating training with existing didactic and clinical schedules during the project time frame and challenges identifying implementation leaders at training sites.CONCLUSION This project highlights a successful and potentially replicable approach to offering structured MAT capacity-building training in combination with technical assistance (TA) within medical education programs.