What can we learn from COVID-19 to improve opioid treatment? Expert providers respond

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devasting effects on drug abuse treatment systems already stressed by the opioid crisis. Providers within opioid use disorder (OUD) outpatient treatment programs have had to adjust to rapid change and respond to new service delivery provisions such as telehealth and take-home medication. Using the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent organizational challenges as a backdrop, this study explores providers' perspectives about strategies and policies that, if made permanent, can potentially improve access to and quality of OUD treatment.

This qualitative study was conducted in Los Angeles County, which has one of the largest substance use disorder (SUD) treatment systems in the United States serving a diverse population, including communities impacted by the opioid crisis. We collected qualitative interview data from 30 high-performing programs (one manager/supervisor per program) where we based high performance on empirical measures of access, retention, and program completion outcomes. The study team completed data collection and analysis using constructivist grounded theory (CGT) to describe the social processes in which the participating managers engaged when faced with the pandemic and subsequent organizational changes. We developed 14 major codes and six minor codes with definitions. The interrater reliability tests showed pooled Cohen's kappa statistic of 93 %.

Our results document the impacts of COVID-19 on SUD treatment systems, their programmatic responses, and the strategic innovations they developed to improve service delivery and quality and which managers plan to sustain within their organizations.

Providers identified three primary areas for strategic innovation designed to improve access and quality: (1) designing better medication utilization, (2) increasing telemedicine capacity, and (3) improving reimbursement policies. These strategies for system transformation enable us to use lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to direct policy and programmatic reform, such as expanding eligibility for take-home medication and enhancing access to telehealth services.