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Treating an Epidemic During a Pandemic: Experience Treating Opioid Use Disorder at the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2021

Catherine J. Chamberlain
Affiliation:
BD Health Services, Baltimore, MD, USA
Zishan K. Siddiqui
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Mihir J. Chaudhary
Affiliation:
Department of Surgery, University of California East Bay, Oakland, CA, USA
Melinda E. Kantsiper*
Affiliation:
Division of Hospital Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, USA
*
Corresponding author: Melinda E. Kantsiper, Email: mkantsi1@jhmi.edu.

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, access to addiction treatment has plummeted. At the same time, patients with opioid use disorder are at higher risk of COVID-19 infection and experience worse outcomes. The Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital (BCCFH), a state-run COVID-19 disaster hospital operated by Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical System, continues to operate 14 months into the pandemic to serve as an overflow unit for the state’s hospitals. BCCFH staff observed the demand for opioid use disorder care and developed admission criteria, a pharmacy formulary, and case management procedures to meet this need. This article describes generalized lessons from the BCCFH experience treating substance use disorder during a pandemic.

Type
Concepts in Disaster Medicine
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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