The Wright Center for Community Health is one of only 16 sites nationwide selected to participate in a new project to advance education and training in the treatment of substance use disorders.

These 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.

“This important public health initiative will improve and strengthen the integration of our addiction medicine services for patients and families affected by substance use disorders,” said Scott Constantini, assistant vice president for 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-informed, recovery-focused, and addiction medicine-specialized primary health care workforce and establish milestone-based competencies and skills 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 scheduled to open in early September in Dickson City and Tunkhannock.

Nationwide epidemic

The 3Cs Framework pilot program is part of a nationwide effort by authorities to combat an epidemic that claims more than 100,000 lives in the United States each year.

It is part of a broader national strategy launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden’s administration in response to an exponential increase in overdose deaths.

A preliminary report released this spring by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics projects there will be an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2023. More details can be found here.

The numbers are subject to change as additional data for 2023 are submitted to the National Vital Statistics System, the CDC notes.

However, these grim statistics offer a glimmer of hope.

They represent a 3% decrease from the estimated 111,029 deaths in 2022 – the first annual decline in drug overdose deaths since 2018, according to the CDC.

The number of opioid overdose deaths fell from an estimated 84,181 in 2022 to 81,083 in 2023, the agency added.

The report showed an estimated 13.59% decline in Pennsylvania through February of this year, with an estimated 4,567 overdose deaths statewide.

But in many states, especially in the West and Southwest, the number of deaths has risen into double digits, so the epidemic seems far from over.

How the framework works

The 3Cs framework – defined as core knowledge, collaboration and clinical practice – “covers the full spectrum of medical, mental, behavioral, dental and socioeconomic needs,” the Wright Center said in a press release.

It was developed from a 2021 National Academy of Medicine report titled “Educating Together, Improving Together,” which was commissioned to examine how education and training can more effectively respond to the opioid crisis.

The project aims to test how well the 3Cs framework works in different educational and practice contexts, including primary and secondary education and among practicing health professionals.

Lessons learned from the pilot projects will later be presented at a meeting in Washington, DC, to identify opportunities to expand use of the framework nationwide.

Wright Center has experience in the field

The Wright Center is one of only two sites in Pennsylvania selected as a pilot site; the other is the Caring Together Program at Drexel College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

In 2016, the Wright Center was designated one of Pennsylvania’s first State of Pennsylvania Centers of Excellence for Opioid Use Disorder by then-Governor Tom Wolf.

All of the center’s prescribers are skilled in medication-assisted treatment and have treated more than 2,400 patients with substance use disorders, officials said.

In 2018, authorities said, the Wright Center led a consortium that launched the Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support (Healthy MOMS) program, designed to help pregnant women and new mothers with substance use disorders in active recovery and reduce the number of babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

This program serves nine counties in northeastern Pennsylvania and has assisted over 500 mothers and 287 babies, according to officials.