A two-day meeting for experts of NIATx-RCM was held on March 1–2 by ICF “Alliance for Public Health”

A two-day meeting for Ukrainian experts in implementation of rapid change model for the improvement of addiction treatment (NIATx-RCM) was held on March 1–2 by ICF “Alliance for Public Health” within the research project “Expanding Medication Assisted Therapy (MAT) in Ukraine” within the partnership with the Yale School of Medicine (USA) with financial support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (USA). Narcologists, nurses and representatives of NGOs who are actively involved in OAT scaling-up in Ukraine attended the meeting. 27 participants from 13 Ukrainian oblasts shared their experiences about progressive strategies of access and retention in OAT, namely: alignment of patients’ routes, peer-to-peer navigation, take-home care, prescriptions, advocacy and process efficiency of OAT drug dispensing. During nominal group techniques the special attention was paid to the barriers for scaling-up OAT services in Ukraine and the ways to overcome these barriers.

The project is implemented in strong collaboration with Ukrainian Institute on Public Health Policy and Public Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.