Do coaches for addicts help them stay clean?

Boston hospital gets $1M to seek answer

More hospitals nationwide are hiring peer recovery coaches — people who have managed to beat addiction — to help current patients battling substance use disorder. But there is still one major unknown to be discovered: Do they help?

That’s the question Boston Medical Center will aim to answer with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“For the most part, it’s a model that really hasn’t been studied deeply,” said Dr. Ricardo Cruz, the principal investigator of Project RECOVER and a researcher with the Grayken Center for Addiction at BMC. “We thought it would be a good opportunity to look into this and see if it can help get individuals engaged and retained into treatment.”

Boston Medical’s Project RECOVER will hire two recovery coaches — one working with patients at Lahey Health Behavioral Services’ Boston Treatment Center, and the other at Dimock Community Health Center.

Those in recovery getting help from the peer coaches will be screened over the course of six months.

Making the initial move to get into treatment is only one of the hurdles. Recovery coaches are tasked with preventing the slide back into addiction.

A study in The Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment found that 90 percent of patients with substance use disorder relapsed or overdosed within a year after discharge from inpatient detoxification.

More than two-thirds of the patients did not engage in outpatient treatment with medication.

Though there have not been other formal studies locally, Massachusetts General Hospital is leading the way in recovery coach use and has seen an improvement, said Martha T. Kane, clinical director for MGH’s Center for Addiction Medicine.

MGH has treated 1,400 patients among 10 recovery coaches since 2014, Kane said. There have been a total of 14,500 visits.

The program has led to 25 percent fewer admissions.

“The most important thing is they have the lived experience,” Kane said. “They know the sense of being overwhelmed and the helplessness. Patients

STAFF PHOTO BY ANGELA ROWLINGS, ABOVE; STAFF FILE PHOTOS BY NICOLAUS CZARNECKI, LEFT, AND PATRICK WHITTEMORE, BELOW IT’S UP FOR STUDY: Dr. Ricardo Cruz, a researcher with the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, will study the effectiveness of peer coaches in addiction recovery. Massachusetts General Hospital, below, reports success using such...