The investigators of EMBED, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, have received approval to move from the planning phase to the implementation phase of their study. Congratulations to Dr. Ted Melnick, Dr. Gail D’Onofrio, and the EMBED study team for their excellent work!

“The opioid crisis is taking a devastating toll on Americans, their families, and their communities. The EMBED project leverages the urgency of our nation’s opioid crisis to bring together leaders in human-centered design, clinical informatics, data coordination, emergency medicine, and addiction medicine to provide an integrated, user-friendly solution to emergency clinicians caring for people with opioid addiction.”   —Dr. Edward Melnick, Co-PI of EMBED

EMBED (Pragmatic Trial of User-Centered Clinical Decision Support to Implement Emergency Department-Initiated Buprenorphine for Opioid Use Disorder) is designed to evaluate the effect of computerized clinical decision support on rates of emergency department-initiated buprenorphine/naloxone (BUP), which is a well-established outpatient treatment for people with opioid use disorder. BUP can only be prescribed by appropriately trained physicians. Although patients with opioid use disorder often seek medical care in emergency departments, the practice of initiating BUP in the emergency department is not common.

“Initiating buprenorphine in the emergency department has the potential to improve and save so many lives, but currently adoption rates are close to 0%. We believe that the EMBED intervention will be a crucial part of getting this evidence-based practice into routine emergency care.”   —Dr. Edward Melnick, Co-PI of EMBED

NIH Collaboratory Trials begin with a 1-year, milestone-driven planning phase. Projects become eligible to move to the implementation phase after an administrative review of progress toward scientific milestones and feasibility requirements.

In the planning phase, the EMBED study team developed the clinician decision support tools intended to facilitate the management of people with untreated opioid use disorder who seek care in emergency departments. In the next phase, the team will implement the trial and test the effect of the clinical decision support tool compared to usual care on outcomes in patients with opioid use disorder who seek care in emergency departments.

EMBED was supported within the NIH Collaboratory by a cooperative agreement from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study also received logistical and technical support from the NIH Collaboratory Coordinating Center through a cooperative agreement from the Office of Strategic Coordination within the Office of the NIH Director.