The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded a $1.6 million grant to a multidisciplinary research team at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health to establish a Wisconsin Opioid Prevention and Treatment Research Network.
Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, MD, MPH, and Jill Denson, PhD, MSW, APSW, will serve as co-primary investigators.
Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, MD, MPH, professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and Jill Denson, PhD, MSW, APSW, director, UW Prevention Research Center, will serve as co-primary investigators.
They are joined by co-investigators Randy Brown, MD, PhD (Department of Family Medicine and Community Health); Hanna Barton, PhD, Collin Michels, MD, and Brian Patterson, MD, MPH (BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine); and Majid Afshar, MD, MS (Department of Medicine).
This four-year project, supported through the UW Prevention Research Center, strengthens care for people with opioid use disorder (OUD) in the emergency department (ED) through three aims: validating an opioid artificial intelligence screener to identify patients at high risk for OUD, increasing the rate of patients who initiate buprenorphine treatment in the ED, and enhancing linkage to ongoing outpatient and community-based care.
According to Public Health Madison & Dane County, overdose is the leading cause of death for people ages 18–54 in Dane County. Emergency departments often treat people who have experienced or are at high risk for an overdose. This positions EDs as a critical point of intervention in the opioid crisis; however, evidence-based practices, such as starting buprenorphine treatment in the ED and connecting patients to ongoing care, are still not used as widely as they could be — leaving a major gap in the continuum of care for people with OUD.
“We are excited to receive this grant in hopes that we can continue to improve the system of care for people with opioid use disorder in Dane County,” Salisbury-Afshar said. “The goal is to increase the number of individuals who are offered and receive buprenorphine, a life-saving medication for opioid use disorder from the ED, and then to increase linkage to ongoing outpatient care through peer support outreach efforts.”
This new initiative builds on several years of collaboration between Salisbury-Afshar and Michels, whose partnership began with a Department of Family Medicine and Community Health small grant in 2021.
Together, they implemented a clinical decision support tool within electronic health records to streamline initiation of buprenorphine in the ED, helping clinicians more easily identify and treat patients with OUD at a critical moment of contact. Their team also led nursing education and evaluation initiatives focused on improving care for patients with OUD and expanding overdose education.
Current efforts extend beyond the hospital walls as the group evaluates prehospital buprenorphine administration with the City of Madison Fire Department to explore how early treatment in the field can further reduce barriers to recovery and strengthen the continuum of emergency and community care.
“Our ongoing collaboration has been about meeting patients where they are — whether that’s in the field with EMS, in the emergency department, or through follow-up care in the community,” Michels said. “Each new initiative builds on what we’ve learned together about making evidence-based treatment accessible from the very first point of contact.”
Published: October 2025