Earlier this year, ACCP partnered with the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) to develop educational programming on the role of clinical pharmacists in opioid use disorder (OUD) identification and management. This session, titled “Team-Based Management of Opioid Misuse Across the Care Continuum,” will be live-streamed at the 2020 ACCP Annual Meeting on Tuesday, October 27, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (CDT) as well as at the ASAM Annual Meeting to be held in April 2021. Speakers will include ACCP members Nicole Acquisto, Alyssa Peckham, and Sarah Melton. ACCP Past President Suzanne Nesbit will serve as moderator for the session.

The session will begin with Acquisto addressing the use of emergency departments as an opportunity to identify patients with OUD and the barriers to initiating treatment, highlighting the clinical pharmacist’s role in developing tools and resources to improve screening and implementation of medication-assisted treatment. Peckham will discuss the purpose and value of transitional bridge clinics as low-threshold access points for OUD treatment and how clinical pharmacists can assist patients in this setting. An experienced clinician in this field, Peckham received the best research poster award in the associated professional category at the 2020 ASAM Annual Meeting. Rounding out the speakers, Melton will describe the barriers and benefits encountered in establishing a collaborative practice agreement with prescribers to provide medications for OUD and the potential outcomes from collaborations integrating pharmacists into the care team providing treatment for OUD.

Founded in 1954, ASAM represents over 6000 health care providers involved in the field of addiction medicine. The organization is dedicated to increasing access to, and improving the quality of, addiction treatment; educating health care providers and the public; and supporting research and prevention. The principles guiding ASAM’s advocacy priorities include:

• Addiction policy should be guided by, and promote the use of, the latest science and best practices in addiction prevention, treatment, remission, and recovery.
• People with addiction deserve compassionate, evidence-based care that addresses the chronic nature of the disease of addiction.
• Strategic and multifaceted policy solutions are needed to drive the development of a more accessible, effective, robust, and comprehensive addiction prevention and treatment infrastructure.
• Policies and payment systems should ensure equitable access to comprehensive, high-quality addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery services.
• Policy should challenge, rather than reinforce, cultural misunderstanding, stigma, and discrimination about the disease of addiction.
• Addiction policy and advocacy should respect and integrate the perspectives of people with addiction and their families.

ASAM advocates policies and practices that ensure equitable access to, and coverage for, comprehensive, high-quality addiction care as well as targeted legislation and funding to increase the number of qualified, well-trained addiction treatment professionals in high-need communities across America. ASAM also supports the use of nationally recognized guidelines and standards for the treatment of addiction and the dissemination of competency-based addiction education for all health care professionals.