Release Date
Geography
Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
While daily witnessed opioid agonist treatment (OAT) ingestion is common in British Columbia (BC), Canada, and elsewhere, sparse evidence supports this resource-intensive practice. Many settings across North America relaxed restrictions for take-home dosing during the COVID-19 pandemic and have reported consistent or improved patient outcomes. This study measured excess expenditures attributed to daily witnessed pharmacy dispensing compared with weekly or biweekly dispensation schedules.
Findings/Key points
Daily witnessed opioid agonist treatment ingestion results in over $30 million in excess expenditures annually in the province of British Columbia, Canada compared with the costs of weekly or biweekly dispensation schedules.
Design/methods
Population-level retrospective analysis. A total of 24,357,107 OAT dispensations among 51,195 unique individuals with 122,793 person-years of follow-up were included during the study period.
