As a provider of industry-leading substance use and addiction treatment, EHN Canada is proud to be selected for CRISM’s latest project.
Our government has realized that current public substance use treatment and public health initiatives in harm reduction do not always reflect evidence-based practice, so CRISM is turning to local and national leaders who successfully integrate current research-based treatment methods into their programs. The Canadian Research Institute for Substance Misuse, or CRISM, is a national research body responsible for integrating research into best practices for substance use treatment.
CRISM’s work has produced guidelines such as Clinical Management of Opioid Use Disorder. CRISM is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and consists of four nodes: BC, the Prairies, Ontario, and Quebec-Atlantic. In surveying and researching world-class substance use treatment facilities, CRISM aims to create future public health policy, harm reduction, community initiatives, and treatment guidelines in addiction treatment—in the case of this project, for opioid use disorders.
In translating addiction research into clinical practice and government policy, CRISM stakeholders include the following: researchers, health care providers, public and private treatment facilities, legislators and community members with lived substance use experience. As part of this CRISM initiative, the University of Calgary and Dr. Brian Rush of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) are surveying clinical leaders and managers at EHN Canada facilities to gather information about how we treat substance use disorders and, in particular, opioid addiction.
We are thrilled that these CRISM organizations have selected EHN Canada as a service provider to consult. The purpose of the two CRISM surveys is to understand how opioid addiction is treated at facilities across the country. CRISM is looking for insight from clinical management at our facilities for two arms of care:
- Withdrawal management services for opioids (via CAMH)
- Various treatments in residential, non-residential, and day programs and their efficacy in treating opioid addiction (via University of Calgary and the Treatment of Opioids in Psychosocial Programs project)
The study’s results will be published and used by policy makers and public health agencies to inform future opioid addiction treatment practices. In other words, EHN Canada’s treatment programs can help influence how services like opioid addiction withdrawal are implemented on a national level. Since we pride ourselves as leaders in substance use treatment throughout Canada, we’re honoured that CRISM has asked us to contribute our knowledge towards addressing our country’s opioid crisis at a research and policy level.
