New program offers overlooked treatment for addiction

A patient arrives at the hospital with a raging fever and chills radiating throughout his entire body. When doctors listen to his heart, they hear a whooshing sound that shouldn't be there. They diagnose him with endocarditis (a heart valve infection), treat him with a high dose of antibiotics for several weeks, and send him home. Although the medical team suspects that he contracted the heart infection from injecting heroin, they do not diagnose him with or start treatment for an addiction (medically known as substance use disorder) while he is in the hospital. After being discharged, the patient goes back to using heroin and, in a few weeks, returns to the hospital with the same infection or something much worse. The patient described here, though fictional, represents a common scenario in hospitals today. Patients with substance use disorders often face a vicious cycle of receiving treatment for one problem without addressing the underlying issue.