ED-Initiated Buprenorphine

The Yale Department of Emergency Medicine is pleased to provide this website as a comprehensive resource for any provider seeking information on ED-initiated buprenorphine.

Emergency departments (EDs) administer lifesaving interventions all day every day and all night every night. In addition to rapidly resuscitating and stabilizing patients with acute illness and injury, emergency physicians are charged with identifying the appropriate level and type of care within the health care system — from intensive care to treatment in an outpatient clinic — for patients who are seen in the ED. The ED is less well known for its role in the identification of chronic diseases, including hypertension and diabetes, and subsequent treatment initiation and referral. Many emergency physicians no longer blink at starting patients on treatment for such conditions and then making a handoff to a primary care provider or federally qualified health center.

Gail D’Onofrio, M.D., Ryan P. McCormack, M.D., and Kathryn Hawk, M.D., M.H.S.

December 27, 2018, N Engl J Med 2018; 379:2487-2490, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1811988