The Substance Use Disorder Patient and Provider Experience Task Group‘s objective is to help empower and support Vancouver Acute and Vancouver Community staff to provide the best possible environment for the care of patients with substance use disorder. Committee members are developing and supporting the implementation of practical strategies and initiatives through a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach.

The SUDPPE group was created at the request of Drs. Adam Chodkiewicz, Jan Hajek, and Shane Arishenkoff, who presented a proposal to the VPSA board in October 2023. This was followed by a call for expressions of interest to join the group in January 2024. The committee’s members are Dr. Chodkiewicz (co-chair), Dr. Hajek (co-chair), Dr. Jeffrey Freeman, Dr. Diane Fredrikson, Dr. Syma Khan, Dr. Laura Kuyper, and social worker Emilie Viens.

“People with substance use disorder make up a significant number of patients admitted to VGH,” said Dr. Chodkiewicz, an addiction psychiatrist. “Substance use disorders and related mental illnesses, behavioural disorders, and stigmatization can present tremendous challenges and barriers to hospital-based care for both patients and staff. These can lead to poor patient experiences, worse outcomes, added medical expenses, and provider workload, frustration, and stress.”

The task group has several initiatives in the works. These include offering comforting snack foods and access to TV to help pass the time and ease the stressors of hospitalization (VA VP Michelle de Moor is working with the task group on this), and a VGH Emergency Department clothing storage/donations proposal.

Task group members encourage their colleagues to take VCH’s online 40-minute stigma course, Resisting Stigma, which has been designed to allow health-care professionals to better understand the lives of their patients, to provide culturally safe practice, and to increase access to care and quality of care for people who use substances.

“Stigma undermines the effectiveness of the response to the BC overdose crisis,” said committee member and emergency physician Dr. Khan. “I highly recommend taking this short online course; it challenged me to consider the ways in which stigma creates a barrier to health-care access and helped me to reflect on simple approaches (such as the language we use), that can be an effective way to fight stigma.”