Program To Prevent Opioid Overdoses Expands To Kips Bay Hospital

KIPS BAY, NY — The city is expanding a program that pairs advocates with a firsthand experience of substance use with people who have just survived an opioid overdose in the emergency room itself to NYU Langone's locations in Kips Bay and Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the Health Department announced Monday.

The program, called Relay, pairs "wellness advocates" who have their own history in some capacity with substance use with patients just hours after an opioid overdose to connect them to resources — from risk-reduction education to finding housing.

The program is now expanding to NYU Langone Health-Tisch in Kips Bay at 550 First Ave. and the hospital's Brooklyn location in Sunset Park at 150 55th St., the DOH announced Monday.

"This group of people are really high-risk. So we targeted this population at this moment in time because they are at such a high-risk in an emergency department that [has] a gap in services," said Angela Jeffers, director of Relay.

"The timing is really important," Jeffers said. People who survive an overdose are two to three times more likely to overdose again, and emergency departments are often not equipped to handle opioids overdoses, she said.

Relay launched in June 2017. Since then, the city has worked with more than 850 people. Now the program is sited at a total of 10 hospitals in all five boroughs.

The advocate meets with the patients at their bedside in the emergency room, offering overdose risk-reduction counseling, naloxone kit training, and then providing 90 days of support to find substance use disorder treatments like buprenorphine or methadone, emergency housing, assistance with obtaining food subsidies through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (often called food stamps), and more.

One wellness advocate, Kimberly Howard, said her lived experience with substance use issues "brings a unique perspective to the treatment of the person because I can connect with them moreso than what medical staff at the hospital can do."

The advocates fill a gap in services for those with substance use disorders seeking help, Relay staff said.

For instance, Howard, who became a wellness advocate when the program launched, said one patient she was working with was referred by a hospital to a clinic for suboxone — a drug used to treat substance use disorder. But when the patient arrived, the clinic had shuttered. When the patient returned to the hospital, hospital personnel couldn't assist because the patient had already been discharged, Howard said.

Instead, the patient was able to call Howard, who then helped the patient get prescribed suboxone.

"It can be challenging and overwhelming [to access certain care and resources] and you can sort of give up, but having Relay by your side helping you and supporting you and even escorting you, you see that you don't have to give up," said Kimberly Howard, one of the peer advocates who has been with the program for nearly two years.

About 40 advocates work full- and part-time at 10 hospitals citywide, including New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medial Center and Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Manhattan.

Next year, the Health Department plans to expand to five more hospitals, the department said.

"The Relay program meets New Yorkers at very high risk of overdose death at a critical time of need," Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said in a statement.

In 2017, 1,487 people died of overdose, the Health Department said.

Some 82 percent of deaths involved opioids, and 57 percent involved fentanyl — a potent opioid found laced in heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine and other illicit drugs that has exacerbated the city's overdose crisis.

Between January and September of last year, a confirmed 1,055 people died of overdose, per the department.

"The opioid epidemic touches too many lives," Councilman Keith Powers, who represents parts of Kips Bay through Midtown and the Upper East Side, said in a statement. "With peer advocates, those who have experienced an overdose will have an opportunity to build a positive relationship for recovery."