A new pilot program that started this summer helps people with opioid use disorder to initiate medication-assisted treatment in Mission’s emergency room, and then coordinates follow-up care.

A new pilot program that started this summer helps people with opioid use disorder to initiate medication-assisted treatment in Mission’s emergency room, and then coordinates follow-up care.
According to figures shared with the county Board of Commissioners by Dr. Shuchin Shukla, a physician and opioid crisis educator with the Mountain Area Health Education Center, Buncombe’s rate of overdose deaths has exceeded the statewide average since at least 2016. In 2021, the county suffered 45.2 deaths per 100,000 residents, compared with 35.8 deaths per 100,000 for North Carolina as a whole.
Buncombe County EMS has a new tool for helping an individual suffering from an opioid overdose: medication-assisted treatment, or MAT.