The intersection of dual public health emergencies—the COVID-19 pandemic and the drug toxicity crisis—has led to an urgent need for acute care based harm reduction for unregulated opioid use. Emergency Departments (EDs) as Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs) with multiple, interdependent, and interacting elements are suited to deliver such interventions. This paper examines how the ED is organized to provide harm reduction and identifies facilitators and barriers to implementation in light of interactions between system elements.
Citation: Jiao, S., Bungay, V., Jenkins, E. et al. How an emergency department is organized to provide opioid-specific harm reduction and facilitators and barriers to harm reduction implementation: a systems perspective. Harm Reduct J 20, 139 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-023-00871-1
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