A Systems Approach to Addressing Opioid Use Disorder in the Community

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Many communities are struggling to deal with the negative consequences of illicit opioid use. Effectively addressing this issue requires the coordination and support of the community stakeholders in a change process with common goals and objectives, continuously engaging individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) through their treatment and recovery journeys, the application of systems principles to drive process change and sustain it, and the use of formal evaluation process that supports adaptive learning. In this talk we present strategies we are developing and implementing through three pilot studies in Indiana to improve OUD treatment and recovery that are grounded in systems thinking. The specific areas include: i) reducing the incidence of neonatal abstinence system, ii) improving the treatment intake process for high- risk individuals, and iii) building treatment capacity in a rural community. Although this is work in progress, we discuss our initial systems modeling approaches and preliminary results as well as important implementation and dissemination challenges.

About the Speaker:

Paul Griffin is the St. Vincent Health Chair and Director of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University. He is also a faculty member in the schools of Industrial Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. His research interests fall in the areas of health analytics, health systems engineering, and modeling of public health interventions. Prior to joining Purdue, Paul was the Joseph C. Mello Chaired Professor in the School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He has also served as department head for the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State. Paul began his academic career at Georgia Tech after completing his PhD in industrial engineering at Texas A&M University.