Modern Healthcare – August 12, 2019

32 Modern Healthcare | August 12, 2019

By Steven Ross Johnson

THE ESCALATING opioid crisis has

prompted many health systems to inte-

grate addiction medicine services with-

in primary-care delivery settings, with

varying degrees of success.

About eight years ago, New Hyde

Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health be-

gan planning a diff erent route. It would

create a residential and outpatient treat-

ment facility centered on addiction

medicine research. When Wellbridge

Addiction Treatment and Research

opens in November in Long Island, it’ll

be the fi rst of its kind in the nation.

“Th e possibility of having patients

literally down the hall from scientists

was something that I wanted,” said An-

drew Drazan, CEO and co-founder of

Wellbridge.

Th e $95 million, six-building, 40-acre

campus will include 80 residential beds

and a 6,000 square-foot research facility.

Twenty beds will be used for patients

undergoing medically supervised de-

tox while 40 beds will be available for

monthlong rehabilitation stays. Another

20 beds will be for stays of up to three

months. Nearly half of Wellbridge’s staff

will be clinical professionals.

“I didn’t want to create another rehab

dealing with addiction,” Drazan said. “I

Under one roof: solutions

to ending addiction

STRATEGIES

thought that if we could integrate more

science, more medicine and treat addic-

tion like other chronic illnesses like heart

disease and diabetes, then why not?”

Treatment for addiction has remained

largely unchanged for decades, with

mainstream therapies such as medi-

cally assisted treatments getting broad

acceptance and support only within the

past two decades.

Jon Morgenstern, assistant vice

president of addiction services at

Northwell, is leading the research at

Wellbridge. He said too often research

excludes input from providers actively

caring for patients.

Typically community addiction treat-

ment programs serve as test sites for

researchers from other institutions who

test their ideas on patients. Th at allows

for an exchange of knowledge, but rarely

impacts the treatment program because

the researchers don’t interact with clini-

cians or patients.

“We don’t have an evidence treat-

ment program model, and that’s a huge

problem in our fi eld,” Morgenstern said.

Th ere is plenty of research being con-

ducted to understand more eff ective

treatments for addiction, which was

responsible for more than

68,000 deaths in 2018 and

more than 72,000 in 2017.

Performing studies with-

in clinical settings will allow

researchers to address re-

al-world factors involving

patients and their environ-

ment that may not be present

while testing in the labora-

tory, Morgenstern said.

“We have a lot of treat-

ments that have proven effi -

cacious in clinical trials, but

clinical trial work by their

very nature is pretty con-

trolled,” he added. “When

you think about how care

is delivered in the addiction space, we

don’t really know how all of the various

components with that setting interact

with each other to produce outcomes.”

Wellbridge Medical Director Dr.

Harshal Kirane said research will be sub-

sidized through grants and donations

and that care provided to patients in-

volved in research will be free.

“Th ere’s a tremendous amount of

research on addiction, and like other

areas of medicine, it’s often diffi cult to

translate the science into good clinical

care,” Morgenstern said. “Th ere’s always

a gap in every medical fi eld, but the gap

in addiction is larger than it is in other

disorders. We need a more robust eff ort

to bring science into clinical care.”

Th at could explain why so few med-

ically trained professionals provide

addiction treatment. Th e long-held

stigma around addiction led the med-

ical community at large to leave treat-

ment mostly to those who advocated

12-step programs primarily based

on abstinence. Such programs have

opposed using medically assisted

treatments like methadone and bu-

prenorphine despite those therapies

having a higher success rate than 12-

step programs alone.

Morgenstern envi-

sions Wellbridge as

a center that will be

known for addiction

medicine the way the

Dana-Farber Cancer

Institute and the Uni-

versity of Texas MD An-

derson Cancer Center

have become synony-

mous with cutting-edge

cancer care.

“Wellbridge, I think,

will be unique with-

in the landscape of

addiction treatment,”

Morgenstern said. 

Incorporate research

within an addiction

treatment model to

improve clinicians’

knowledge base

Allow scientists to

interact with patients

to better understand

their experience

Maintain robust data

of patient outcomes

to measure quality

benchmarks and

program effectiveness

“Th e possibility of

having patients

literally down

the hall from

scientists was

something that I

wanted.”

Andrew Drazan

CEO and co-founder

Wellbridge

Wellbridge, set to open in November, will

have 80 beds along with a research facility.