Defining a recovery-oriented cascade of care for opioid use disorder: A community-driven, statewide cross-sectional assessment.
Jesse L YedinakWilliam C GoedellKimberly PaullRebecca LebeauMaxwell S KriegerCheyenne ThompsonAshley L BuchananTom CoderreRebecca BossJosiah D RichBrandon D L MarshallPublished in: PLoS medicine (2019)
Our findings indicate that cross-sectional summaries of the cascade of care for OUD can be used as a health policy tool to identify gaps in care, inform data-driven policy decisions, set benchmarks for quality, and improve health outcomes for persons with OUD. There exists a significant opportunity to increase engagement prior to the initiation of OUD treatment (i.e., identification of OUD symptoms via routine screening or acute presentation) and improve retention and remission from OUD symptoms through improved community-supported processes of recovery. To do this more precisely, states should work to systematically collect data to populate their own cascade of care as a health policy tool to enhance system-level interventions and maximize engagement in care.