Can something as simple as a ride improve the odds of recovery?

Despite the flood of scary and overwhelmingly bad news about the opioid epidemic, there are some bright lights shining through that can give us hope and encouragement to press forward in the fight. One good example is a pilot program that's being run in Cleveland through St. Vincent Charity Medical Center's Rosary Hall. It's based on the insight that one of the biggest obstacles to receiving and remaining in treatment is transportation.

Many people seeking treatment have had DUI's and don't have a valid driver's license - or they simply don't have the resources to have a reliable car or non-using friend who can drive them to and from a treatment program on a daily basis - a program that lasts 5 months. Taking the bus often puts them directly back into the place and with the same people they used with. Even for someone who's motivated to get treatment, spending time with and around their old group of friends on a daily basis just doesn't make sense.

So the team at St. Vincent's took the transportation challenge on by looking at a non-traditional solution - Uber. They partnered with Circulation, a Boston-based company that has developed a proprietary, HIPAA-compliant digital platform to connect Uber with patients and health care providers. Through the pilot program, individuals who have completed a 4 or 5 day inpatient detox program are picked up and dropped off door-to-door via Uber in order to provide them with a safe and dignified way to get to and from treatment. 

"With the stigma of addiction, many patients haven't been treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve in years, but something as simple as an Uber ride begins to build that, all while hopefully getting more people to treatment." said Orlando Howard, the outpatient coordinator at Rosary Hall.

The results? Thirty days into the 90-day pilot, the 11 patients who were enrolled in the program had received a total of 156 Uber rides to and from treatment and had not missed a single IOP or individual counseling session, which is "amazing," To learn more - listen to this podcast, or read the article here.