A local behavioral healthcare agency that provides medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for prison inmates recovering from opioid use disorders recently announced a three-year accreditation of the program.

NEWPORT — A local behavioral healthcare agency that provides medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for prison inmates recovering from opioid use disorders recently announced a three-year accreditation of the program.

“Essentially it allows us to continue to keep operating,” Leslie Bridgman, director of correctional services for CODAC, the largest nonprofit, outpatient provider for opioid treatment in the state, said of the accreditation.

All opioid use disorder treatment programs must be nationally certified in order to prescribe medication; when it comes to correctional facilities, accreditation is obtained from the National Council on Correctional Health Care (an organization that strives to improve healthcare in jails and prisons), according to a press release on behalf of CODAC.

Accreditation from the NCCHC requires applicants to meet 47 standards and includes a site visit during which surveyors interview inmates, administrators and medical staff as well as audit relevant documents, the press release says.

The MAT program at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections created first-in-the-country protocols for the provision of medication-assisted treatment, using all three FDA-approved medications (methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone) for treating opioid use disorders for incarcerated individuals, the press release says.

CODAC, which has a facility on Thames Street, was awarded the contract to provide expanded MAT services at the DOC in 2016, Bridgman said in an email. “From 2016 to February 2018, CODAC was couriering in the medication from one of our sites in the community. February 2018 was when the dispensary co-located at the RIDOC was opened.”

“Since 2016 (when the program started), we have seen treated over 5,000 individuals, and seen a reduction in overdose deaths with this population,” Bridgman added.

Every adult under correctional supervision (pre-trial detention, sentence to incarceration, sentence to probation, sentence to home confinement or release on parole supervision) in the state falls under the jurisdiction of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, according to the department’s website. The DOC’s facilities are known collectively as the Adult Correctional Institutions; the MAT program services the people in those facilities.

With the program, “[w]e continue those that are confirmed on medication in the community, we can start those on medication if diagnosed with [an opioid-use disorder], and medically determined appropriate for MAT,” Bridgman said in an email.

Before the inception of the DOC program, inmates who served more than 60 days withdrew from opioids without the use of MAT services during their sentences, putting them at risk for relapse or overdose upon release, the press release says.

“We have so much to be proud of. CODAC, together with the RIDOC, is one of only 14 organizations nationwide to earn a three-year accreditation from the NCCHC. It is the hard work of CODAC’s dedicated correctional services team that, together with our partners at the RIDOC, has allowed us to achieve this national recognition,” Bridgman said in a prepared statement.

“This accreditation represents the successful culmination of an authentically collaborative effort by CODAC and the RIDOC,” Linda Hurley, president and CEO of CODAC, said in a prepared statement. “This top-level, 3-year award recognizes a groundbreaking opioid treatment program, inside the RI Department of Corrections, that has been called a national model and which is being duplicated across the country. Most of all, we are proud that our partnership with the RIDOC is saving lives in Rhode Island.”

ldamon@newportri.com