2024 SAEMF NIDA Mentor-Facilitated Training Award - $12,000

"Establishing a Quality Framework for Post-Overdose Care and Harm Reduction in the Prehospital to Emergency Department Care Continuum in Seattle, King County, Washington"

This project will utilize existing research, data, and community to provide clinical support to improve the post-opioid overdose care continuum from prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) through the Harborview Medical Center Emergency Department (ED) in Seattle, King County, Washington. For this project we will:

  • Review existing evidence-based practices in the prehospital setting for harm reduction and use of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) by EMS programs that have instituted these initiatives;
  • Identify and respond to frontline knowledge and implementation gaps in post-overdose harm reduction and MOUD for EMS and ED staff using the Systems Analysis and Improvement Approach (SAIA), a quality improvement implementation method;
  • Create a quality framework that will be reviewed by consultants with lived and living experience of drug use;
  • Disseminate clinical care recommendations via a curriculum for prehospital and ED frontline providers, specifically targeting post-overdose harm reduction and initiation of buprenorphine.

Recipient

  • Kira Gressman, MD

    University of Washington

    "Establishing a Quality Framework for Post-Overdose Care and Harm Reduction in the Prehospital to Emergency Department Care Continuum in Seattle, King County, Washington"

    Dr. Gressman is a second-year resident at the University of Washington Emergency Medicine residency, pursuing a population health educational track focused on rural health and addiction medicine. She was born and raised in Colorado, and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder in international affairs and molecular, cellular, developmental biology. Prior to medical school, she worked in HIV prevention and as an emergency medical technician, and volunteered in syringe access. For medical school, she attended Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. As a medical student, she helped to establish a syringe access program in rural New Hampshire. Her interests within emergency medicine include substance use, rural health, development of bidirectional health system-community partnerships, and ground EMS.