This is the fourth webinar in the telehealth series for the Opioid Response Network (ORN).

Patients who receive care in the IHS system often live in rural areas where economic and transportation challenges can make accessing medications for OUD treatment difficult. Telemedicine can remove many barriers to OUD treatment for Native American/Alaskan patients. Dr. Spencer will discuss how telemedicine for OUD is being used in the Alaskan native medical system and elsewhere. Topics covered will include IHS specific legal concerns, home induction and remote urine drug testing, remote harm reduction services, remote behavioral health support and use of monthly injectable medications.

Funding for this initiative was made possible (in part) by grant no. 6H79TI080816 from SAMHSA. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or oganizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

(No CME offered for this course.)

Sarah Spencer, DO Dr. Spencer grew up rural central Maine and did her medical training there during the peak of the Oxycontin epidemic in 2001-2009.  She is board certified in family and addiction medicine has been providing treatment for OUD in rural Alaska since 2010.   For the past 5 years Dr. Spencer has been providing opioid overdose response training and naloxone distribution, and 2016 she became the medical director and founding member of Alaska’s only rural syringe access program.  She is currently an employee of the Ninilchik Traditional Council and provides family medicine and addiction treatment services at their tribal clinic, including telemedicine to remote native villages.  She teaches on addiction issues across the state of Alaska, including buprenorphine waiver certification courses. She participated in the treatment advisory committee for developing the 2019 Alaska state opioid task force recommendations and co-authoring the state’s medication assisted treatment guide and is the state’s senior physician consultant for the SAHMSA funded Opioid Response Network consulting program.

Julie Kmiec, DO, FAOAAM Julie Kmiec, DO, graduated from Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific. She completed her general psychiatry residency training and addiction psychiatry fellowship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) in Pittsburgh, PA. She is currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is board certified in general and addiction psychiatry. Dr. Kmiec is the Medical Director of the Ambulatory Detoxification Program and Bridge Clinic, as well as the Narcotic Addiction Treatment Program. Her clinical interests include treatment of drug and alcohol withdrawal, prevention of overdose, and pharmacotherapy for the treatment of addictions. Dr. Kmiec’s research involves training healthcare professionals on the implementation of medications for opioid use disorder. She is the Immediate Past President of the American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine.