Substance misuse is a significant medical and public health concern associated with high rates of emergency room visits, increased morbidity and mortality, and high healthcare costs. The Substance Use Intervention Team (SUIT) at RUSH was created in 2017 to address the opioid use epidemic and other substance use disorders. The SUIT service functions as an interdisciplinary team, with expertise in critical care, pharmacology, motivational interviewing, care coordination, and more. The team consists of an inpatient consult service and an outpatient clinic that provides MAT, Psychotherapy, and Care Management services.
Universal Screening
Every visit to RUSH represents an ideal opportunity to detect, assess and intervene with patients whose unhealthy substance use puts them at risk for further medical consequences. Every patient who presents to RUSH is screened for potential substance use concerns.
Team members are on-call to engage patients at bedside and depending on the level of need and willingness to accept help, to initiate referrals to inpatient consult team or community resources, or both.
Patients with suspected substance use disorders can be referred to the inpatient SUIT consult service.
Patients can be connected with the SUIT clinic after hospital admission or from the community.
