Federal Grant to Help Mississippi Use Telehealth to Tackle Opioid Abuse

Six health centers across Mississippi will soon have access to addiction treatment services via telehealth in a federally funded program aimed at tackling the nation’s substance abuse crisis.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center and Mississippi State Department of Health have been awarded a $6 million federal grant to develop the connected health network, which will enable UMMC to extend its TeleMAT program to hard-hit areas of the state. Officials have reported a 132 percent increase in deaths attributed to opioid abuse between 2011 and 2018.

“We want to target everyone in need, from those who are at-risk to those with severe problems,” Julie Schumacher, MD, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at UMMC and one of the principal investigators for the health system’s part of the project, said in a story posted by UMMC. “This can help reduce the number of people who fall through the cracks.”

UMMC – one of two federally recognized Telehealth Centers of Excellence – is getting $2.8 million from the grant to expand its TeleMAT platform, which connects with outlying healthcare sites via telehealth to provide Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) therapy. On that platform, nurse practitioners from UMMC who are trained in addiction treatment work with on-site providers to guide patients through a withdrawal process that combines prescribed medications and monitoring.

The program will also include a licensed clinical social worker to provide therapy.

The federal funding comes from the US Department of Justice’s Comprehensive Opioid Stimulant and Substance Abuse Program (COSSAP). Mississippi’s version of that program – MOSSAP – will identify six MSDH health centers in areas hard-hit by substance abuse that have the resources on hand to take part in a telehealth program.

Meg Pearson, MD, a pharmacy director for MSDH, said the program will also screen patients for early signs of addiction, in hopes of addressing the issue in the early stages. It’s being run through health centers rather than mental health centers or addiction treatment clinics in hopes of reaching people who lack access to those services.

“Not only are Mississippians having difficulty finding treatment providers within the county they reside, but they also lack transportation,” she said.

With the nation seeing rising rates of substance abuse while also in the grip of a pandemic, providers are looking to telehealth to increase access and expand the treatment platform to more locations, including the home.  Through the fast-growing MAT therapy concept, they can virtually prescribe medications to help patients through the withdrawal process and use telehealth and mHealth tools to monitor and help those patients whenever needed.