The Wright Center for Community Health is one of just 16 sites nationwide chosen to participate in a new project to advance education and training on substance use disorder treatment.
Those sites will implement the “3Cs Framework for Pain and Unhealthy Substance Use,” an initiative of The National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Combatting Substance Use and Opioid Crises.
Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education.
“This critical public health initiative will enhance and strengthen the integration of our addiction medicine services for patients and families affected by substance use disorders,” said Scott Constantini, associate vice president of primary care and recovery services integration at The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education.
“It will also support our ongoing development of a trauma-competent, recovery-oriented addiction medicine-informed primary health workforce, establishing milestone-based competencies and skill sets for our provider teams, trainees, and staff,” Constantini added.
The Scranton-based Wright Center operates nine community health centers in Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Wayne counties, with two more set to open in early September in Dickson City and Tunkhannock.
Nationwide epidemic
The 3Cs Framework pilot program comes as officials nationwide work to combat an epidemic that claims over 100,000 lives annually in the U.S.
It's part of a larger national strategy launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under the administration of President Joe Biden, in response to an exponential rise in overdose deaths.
A provisional report released this spring by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics indicates there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2023. More detail can be found here.
The numbers are subject to change as more 2023 data are submitted to the National Vital Statistics System, CDC notes.
Those grim statistics do offer a glimmer of hope, however.
They represent a decrease of 3% from the 111,029 deaths estimated in 2022 — the first annual decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018, the CDC says.
Overdose deaths involving opioids decreased from an estimated 84,181 in 2022 to 81,083 in 2023, the agency added.
The report showed an estimated 13.59% annual decrease in Pennsylvania through February of this year, with an estimated 4,567 overdose deaths statewide.
But with many states seeing double-digit increases in the percentage of deaths — particularly in the West and Southwest — the epidemic appears far from over.
How the framework works
The 3Cs Framework — defined as Core Knowledge, Collaboration, and Clinical Practice — "addresses the full spectrum of medical, mental, behavioral, dental, and socioeconomic needs," according to a Wright Center release.
It was developed from a 2021 National Academy of Medicine report "Educating Together, Improving Together," which was commissioned to address how education and training can more effectively respond to the opioid crisis.
The project is designed to test how well the 3Cs Framework works in different education and practice settings, including in undergraduate and graduate education and with practicing health professionals.
Findings from the pilot sites will later be shared at a meeting in Washington, D.C., to help identify ways to expand use of the framework across the country.
Wright Center has experience in the field
The Wright Center is one of only two locations to be chosen to host a pilot site in Pennsylvania; the other is Drexel College of Medicine's Caring Together Program in Philadelphia.
In 2016, The Wright Center was named one of Pennsylvania's first state-designated Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence by then Gov. Tom Wolf.
All of the center's prescribers are competent in medication-assisted treatment, officials said, and have served over 2,400 patients with substance use disorders.
In 2018, officials said, The Wright Center led a consortium to launch the Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support (Healthy MOMS) Program. It was designed to assist pregnant women and new mothers with substance use disorder living in active recovery and to lower the incidence of babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
That program serves nine counties in Northeast Pennsylvania and has supported more than 500 mothers and 287 babies, officials said.
