The Detroit Medical Center has announced it has created the Crisis Addiction Response Team (CART) addiction recovery program in an effort to decrease opioid overdoses and deaths in the Detroit region.
The program was formed in conjunction with Detroit’s Team Wellness Center, a clinic dedicated to enhancing the well-being of individuals in the region dealing with severe or chronic mental illness. CART focuses on providing medication-assisted treatment and management to patients by a team of medical experts trained to identify high-risk patients in the emergency room and offer them practical solutions and treatment options for a sustained recovery.
“In this city and in this country, the opioid epidemic continues to be a major issue that must be combatted,” says Dr. Andrew King, emergency medicine specialist at DMC’s Sinai-Grace, Detroit Receiving Hospital. “The CART program was created to provide the hundreds of opioid addicts we treat each year with a more sustainable treatment solution. We’ve designed a holistic approach for overdose patients in an area of the state with a high incidence of opioid addiction and related deaths. By partnering up with Team Wellness Center, I know we can make a difference in suppressing the Detroit opioid crisis.”
Through the partnership, DMC will oversee the acute treatment of an overdose patient by administering an opioid overdose reversal drug. Once the patient has been medically treated, Team Wellness Center will manage the chronic aspect of the patient’s addiction by providing physical and behavioral health services.
“At Team Wellness, we offer proven continuum-of-care options for those afflicted by the opioid epidemic,” says Dr. Kamal Khalil, a medical researcher at Team Wellness Center. “Once a patient has consented to our individualized treatment, we provide everything a person battling addiction might need to get their life back on track, such as group sessions, counseling, mental health therapy, medication-assisted treatment, basic living essentials, and more.”
A 2017 report conducted by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services disclosed that 1,901 of the 2,700 overdose deaths in the state were opioid-related, which represents about an 8-percent increase from the year before.
DMC is based in Detroit and operates eight hospitals and institutes.
Team Wellness Center has clinics in Detroit and Southgate.
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