City’s hospitals rated on opioid treatment
Baltimore leaders ranked the city’s 11 hospitals this week for best practices in responding to
The hospitals were ranked from level one, for the highest standard of care, to three. Both the University of Maryland Medical Center and its midtown campus earned the highest ranking, while other hospitals scored lower.
The city established the Levels of Care initiative earlier this year to identify facilities that provide comprehensive treatment and prevention of opioid abuse. The hospitals were scored on factors including their ability to treat patients who screen positive for a substance use disorder, distribute naloxone and ensure physicians are prescribing opioids carefully.
Because hospitals play a role in affecting the health outcomes of patients who have or develop opioid addictions, identifying those with best practices for treating such patients is one more tack the city is taking to combat the opioid epidemic.
“Hospitals alone cannot end this epidemic, but it cannot be ended without them,” said Mary Beth Haller, Baltimore’s interim health commissioner, in a statement. “Addiction is a disease and treatment exists.”
Hospitals with level-one certification represent those with the most comprehensive response to the opioid crisis. The care they provide includes stocking at least one formulation of each medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat opioid use disorder; offering peer recovery support for admitted patients; dispensing naloxone to both emergency department patients and admitted patients at high risk for opioid overdose; screening patients in outpatient clinics for substance use disorder; and offering medication-assisted treatment in outpatient clinics, according to the health department.
Here’s how the city’s hospitals ranked:
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