In 2018, the First Bridge Clinic, through a partnership of UK Healthcare and University of Kentucky School of Medicine’s Center on Drug and Alcohol Research and funded through the 21st Century Cures Act, began providing easily accessible services for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) to initiate immediate evidence-based treatment. The program was born out of the observation that many people who came into the healthcare system for medical complications related to OUD and injection drug use never received treatment for the underlying reason for these complications.

The First Bridge Clinic offers comprehensive evidenced-base OUD treatment to people that present to the healthcare system with a nonfatal overdose, infectious diseases like HIV or Hepatitis C, infections of the heart valves (endocarditis), infection of the bone (osteomyelitis), or abscesses. Services provided include:

• buprenorphine induction
• medication management and counseling
• nurse care navigation
• peer support services
• overdose prevention and naloxone training 

In addition, the clinic may begin someone on buprenorphine that lives in a remote area and ensures that the person has continuation of care closer to home.

First Bridge clinic is open five days a week and is in close proximity to the hospital. Bridge clinics like this one have been replicated nationwide and guidelines for implementation can be found here.