SPOKANE, Wash. — Health care workers in the Deaconess emergency department now have a new way to treat patients with opioid withdrawal symptoms: long-acting injectable buprenorphine.
The shot can relieve the symptoms that come with opioid withdrawal for days at a time.
“It’s a tiny little needle. It goes into their abdomen,” said Sara Welty, nurse care manager at MultiCare. “It protects them from overdose. They don’t have cravings. They don’t experience withdrawal, kind of all of the things that allow their brain to quiet down a little bit.”
The drug is usually used in an outpatient setting as a tablet or film that dissolves under the tongue.
The long-acting injection is available in the Deaconess ER as a part of a pilot program they joined earlier this month.
The ER says it’s the only hospital in Eastern Washington to offer the long-acting injectable buprenorphine.
Welty says she’s happy they can use it in the emergency room, especially given the frequency of repeat patients.
“It’s hard when you work in medicine to see the same people over and over and over again,” she said.
She estimates one in eight people who come into the emergency room are struggling with substance use disorders. The shot helps patients avoid relapsing right after treatment.
The shot of buprenorphine will alleviate a patient’s withdrawal symptoms for 5 to 7 days.
For their next stage of treatment, they’ll be referred to community partners like Bloom Psychiatry.
Owner and nurse practitioner Kayla Cross says the long-acting medication simplifies the road to recovery for many people.
“You don’t have to remember to like, be able to pick up your medications and keep track of them and have them with you to take them every day, just like one shot a month or a week,” Cross said.
Currently, Spokane County is averaging about 150 overdoses a month. Welty hopes medications like buprenorphine will help prevent future ones.
“We may have really, really good outcomes from this,” Welty said.
MultiCare will evaluate the success of this year-long pilot program in 2027.
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