Clinical Research Directory

Community Pharmacy-Based Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Opioid Risk Assessment Tool

This goal of this observational study is to develop and test the Opioid Risk Reduction Clinical Decision Support (ORRCDS) tool. The tool will be an opioid medication risk screener and decision support platform that will be used by pharmacists upon dispensing prescription opioid medication. Once the Opioid Risk Reduction has been developed, we will examine the impact of the ORRCDS within two divisions of a large chain retail pharmacy. Pharmacies will be randomized to using the Opioid Risk Reduction Clinical Decision Support (ORRCDS) tool or standard of care opioid dispensation. We hypothesize that patients at pharmacies randomized to the ORRCDS tool will be more likely to reduce their risk status to low or moderate compared to the patients at standard of care pharmacies.

Opioid/Benzodiazepine Polydrug Abuse: Aim 3

In this study, the investigators will measure affective, neurocognitive and behavioral outcomes related to chronic use of opioids and benzodiazepines (screening phase), and in response to the administration of the opioid morphine, the benzodiazepine alprazolam, morphine then alprazolam, alprazolam then morphine, morphine+alprazolam simultaneously, and placebo (laboratory pharmacology experiment). The latter will enable the investigators to assess the effects of an opioid alone, benzodiazepine alone, concurrent and simultaneous administration of opioid+benzodiazepine, relative to a placebo control.

fMRI and Opioid Abstinence

This project examines functional connectivity patterns associated with subsequent relapse to illicit opioids during treatment for OUD.

Rural Expanded Access to OUD Care & Linkage Using Toxicologists for Telehealth Initiated Treatment

The overarching goal of this project is to increase the availability of OUD treatment in rural counties in the state of Georgia by using Emergency Department (ED)-based telehealth strategies to initiate MOUD and connect patients to treatment. The investigators will implement a novel collaboration between rural EDs, medical toxicologists at the Georgia Poison Center (GPC), peer recovery coaches (PRCs) and RCOs throughout Georgia to bridge the gap between OUD treatment need in rural EDs and specialty physician availability at the GPC. Research activities will be conducted during two broad phases, at three rural EDs in Georgia: planning and implementation. During the planning phase, aggregate data will be obtained to determine each ED's existing practices treating patients with OUD and opioid withdrawal. During the implementation phase, the researchers will prospectively study a poison center OUD consultation and PRC intervention as it is rolled out at each site, collecting participant-level data. Sites will be rolled into the implementation phase in a stepped-wedge fashion, so there will be times when some sites are in the planning phase while others are in the implementation phase.

Neuromodulation and Cognitive Training in Opioid Use Disorder

The relapsing nature of opioid use disorder is a major obstacle to successful treatment. About 90% of those entering treatment will relapse within one year. To improve treatment outcome, new interventions targeting the underlying brain biomarkers of relapse vulnerability hold significant promise in reducing this critical public health problem. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that can modulate brain connectivity.