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December 16, 2022

Yale teams with tele-health provider to battle opioid addiction

By Jean Falbo-Sosnovich

Yale’s School of Nursing is partnering with a tele-medicine provider to help combat the growing opioid crisis.

The school has teamed up with New York-based Ophelia, a direct-to-patient digital health provider, to train college nursing students and certify them in prescribing medicine.

Ophelia pairs tele-medicine with potentially life saving medication assisted treatment (MAT) to treat opioid use disorder. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now up to 80,000 opioid overdose deaths annually, and a shortage of education and trained medical professionals to administer medicine. 

Studies have shown taking daily buprenorphine decreases the risk of overdose death by 70%, but the X-waiver certification for clinicians to prescribe it are far and few due to stigmatization, which the Yale/Ophelia partnership is aiming to change.

The partnership would provide nursing students with MAT training and X-waiver certification.

Yale School of Nursing students have the opportunity to shadow and work with experienced clinicians, as well as complete an 8-hour live X-waiver training. 

Led by Yale Senior Lecturer in Nursing and Specialty Director for Adult/Gerontology Primary Care Ami Marshall, 37 students will complete monthly rotations, which began in September and will continue until April.

“Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is prevalent in our country, and we must implement measures to decrease barriers to access for management of this clinical issue,” Marshall said. “A prominent barrier being the lack of clinicians prescribing medication assisted therapy for OUD.”

Raimy Shin is a student in Yale School of Nursing’s Class of 2023 and is a participant in the training program.

“As a student who is passionate about addiction medicine, I am grateful to Ophelia for showing me an innovative way to incorporate this life-saving treatment into my future practice,” Shin said. 

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