Harm Reduction is Healthcare: Decreasing Risk and Stigma With People Who Use Drugs
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Register
- Non-Member - $39
- Regular Member - $29
- Retired - $29
- Early Career Physician - $29
- Resident - $19
- Student - $19
- Associate - $19
- ASAM Staff - Free!
- International Member - $29
- Emeritus Member - $29
- Provisional Member - $29
- Fellow Member - $29
- Honorary Member - $29
- CRT Member - $29
Harm Reduction is Healthcare: Decreasing Risk and Stigma With People Who Use Drugs
Recorded: Thursday, April 24, 2025 to Sunday, April 27, 2025
On-Demand Session
Overview
This 45-minute on-demand session from the ASAM 56th Annual Conference addresses integrating harm reduction, reducing stigma, and the role of interprofessional teams with lived experience in providing person-centered addiction care in the hospital.
Presenters are physicians, Harm Reductionists, people with lived/living experience, Safe Spot Virtual Overdose Prevention Director, and Wellness & Recovery Advocate Supervisor. Didactics feature liberatory Harm Reduction & allyship with PWUD, formalizing HR as hospital policy, and best practices for caring for PWUD. Breakout sessions: compassionate overdose response & different types of harm reduction supplies, implementing HR interventions in the hospital, community & ED HR strategies, and the impact of a Wellness Recovery and Advocate Supervisor on the addiction consult team.
The target audience for this Intermediate level session includes physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, other clinicians, researchers, residents, fellows, students, and counselors.
This session addresses the following ACGME Competencies: Patient Care and Procedural Skills, Medical Knowledge, Practice-based Learning and Improvement, Interpersonal and Communication Skills, Systems-based Practice.
This session addresses the following IPEC Competencies: Values and Ethics, Roles and Responsibilities, Interprofessional Communication, Teams and Teamwork.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion, learners will be able to:
- Incorporate harm reduction including safer drug use supplies into clinical practice when caring for people who use substances in the hospital and demonstrate strategies to do so.
- Reduce stigma when caring for people who use drugs admitted to the hospital.
- Describe the importance of interprofessional teams including individuals with lived/living experience as core members of an addiction consult service in providing true person-centered care.
Registration Rates
| Rate Description | Rate |
| ASAM Member | $29 |
| Non-Member | $39 |
| Associate Member | $19 |
| Resident Member* | $19 |
| Student Member* | $19 |
*Residents, Fellows-in-training, Interns, and Students must join ASAM to receive a discounted registration rate. Click here to become an ASAM member. National and Chapter membership dues apply. There is no charge for Students to become a Member, but verification of student status is required.
Membership Question? Call ASAM at 1.301.656.3920, email us, or view the ASAM website for more information.
Refunds & Cancellations
All ASAM eLearning Center refund requests must be made in writing to education@asam.org within 90 days of purchase. Those requesting refunds for courses that are in progress will receive partial refunds or e-Learning Center credit. Automatic full refunds will be made for any course with a live-course component that has been cancelled.
Registration Open: 05/26/2025 - 04/26/2028
User Access Closed: 05/26/2028
Course Instructions
- Click on the Contents tab to watch the on-demand recording.
- Click Complete Post Test to answer multiple choice questions. Participants will have 10 attempts to pass and must answer 4 out of 5 questions correctly.
- Click Complete Evaluation to provide valuable activity feedback. Scroll down on all questions as there may be answer options that expand past the size of the window.
- Click the button Claim Medical Credits in the box titled Claim Credits & Certificate. Choose the type of credit and click submit. Click the button View/Print Certificate to save or print your certificate. You can view/print your certificate at any time by visiting the ASAM eLearning Center, clicking Dashboard, and clicking Transcript/Achievements.
- For Pharmacists ONLY: Complete the task entitled "Enter Pharmacist CPE Monitor Information (Pharmacists Only)". Pharmacists must claim credit and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate via the Pharmacist CPE Monitor Information survey within 30 days of completing the activity. ASAM will not report CPE Credits claimed 30+ days after activity completion to ACPE. ASAM will not report CPE Credits without accurate and complete information. Courses offering CPE Credit will indicate the amount of credit available for pharmacists on the Credits & Disclosure Tab.
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Ruchi Shah, DO
Assistant Professor General Internal Medicine, Medical Director of Wakefield Hospital Addiction Medicine Consult Service
Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Ruchi Shah, DO (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein School of Medicine. She provides primary care, including addiction medicine care and reproductive health, at Wakefield Ambulatory Care Center, and serves as core faculty in the Montefiore/Einstein Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program. She also provides addiction medicine care on the Addiction Medicine Consult Service and Addiction Medicine Bridge Clinic. She is the incoming Medical Director of the new Wakefield Addiction Medicine Consult Service, which started in January 2025.
Ruchi completed her family medicine residency training and addiction medicine fellowship training at Boston Medical Center. Her interests include health equity and advocacy to turn her big feelings into meaningful change.
No relevant financial disclosures.
Emily Regier, MD
Attending Physician/Assistant Professor
Boston Medical Center/Boston University Chobanian & Avedesian School of Medicine
Emily Regier, MD is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedesian School of Medicine. A Boston-area native, she received her medical degree from the Boston University Chobanian & Avedesian School of Medicine in 2020 and completed her family medicine residency and addiction medicine fellowship at Boston Medical Center. She works as a primary care provider at the Greater Roslindale Medical and Dental Center and provides addiction care in multiple settings at Boston Medical Center, including the Faster Paths bridge clinic, the START clinic for patients who use stimulants, and the inpatient addiction consult service. She is passionate about helping make addiction care more accessible and appealing to patients and incorporating harm reduction principles into addiction treatment settings. During her addiction medicine fellowship, she participated in implementing a pilot project to allow patients to receive harm reduction supplies at discharge from an inpatient unit at Boston Medical Center.
No relevant financial disclosures.
Stephen P. Murray, MPH, NRP
Director, SafeSpot Overdose Hotline / Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor
rayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center / Boston University School of Public Health Plymouth, Massachusetts
Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP, is an overdose researcher, Harm Reduction Program Manager and the Director of the SafeSpot Overdose Hotline at Boston Medical Center and an Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. In 2021, he retired as a Lieutenant at a large regional ambulance service in Western Massachusetts, and had served as a first responder since 2013, having worked both as a firefighter and paramedic. He regularly shares for a national audience about his lived experience as a person who used drugs and overdose survivor. Stephen provides expert technical assistance around the topics of overdose prevention, emergency medical services, workforce and harm reduction to a variety of organizations, county and state governments across the country, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency, the National Academies of Medicine, and the National Governors Association. He has guest lectured at over a dozen universities including at Harvard University, University of Southern California, UMASS Medical School, and Georgetown University. He has research published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, Substance Use & Addiction Journal, American Journal of Public Health and Health Promotion Practice. In September 2023, he was featured in the multiple award-winning Episode 809 ("The Call") on This American Life.
No relevant financial disclosures.
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Theresa Rolley, MA
Wellness and Recovery Advocate Supervisor
Boston Medical Center
Theresa Rolley is currently the Wellness and Recovery Advocate Supervisor on the Addiction Consult Service at Boston Medical Center, former director of a women and children exiting out of sex exploitation and sex trafficking Program, with a Bachelors in Psychology and a Masters in Organizational Leadership.
Working with individuals with substance use disorder (SUD), mental health disorders, trauma, and community violence with compassion and without judgement engaging and assisting men and women in navigating the healthcare system while consulting and working alongside Plymouth County Human trafficking Task Force in developing, upgrading policies and upholding the central principle of an effective task force for victims of crime.
Currently facilitator/Speaker of trauma informed, Empowerment and SMART Recovery groups in Boston. Currently a member of the LEAP Academic Research Training Program, listed as an author on several peer view publications/upcoming book “True stories about us”. Speaker of Addiction Fellow Medicine Didactics and Recovery informed conferences.
No relevant financial disclosures.
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Betsy Craft, BS, CPFS
Policy Director
Colorado Drug Policy Coalition
Betsy Craft (she/they) is an abolitionist and a staunch advocate of health equity for people who use criminalized drugs.They elevate living and lived expertise leadership in community-engaged research and policy advocacy through grassroots organizing and coalition-building with the Colorado Drug Policy Coalition and Right Response Colorado. They work as a Community Engagement Specialist for a local public health agency at the intersection of policy, partnerships, and community health promotion. They is a seasoned peer educator on building team resilience, destigmatization of PWUD, compassionate overdose care and liberatory harm reduction and champions anti-carceral drug policies like overdose prevention centers, peer-led respites and safe supply.
No relevant financial disclosures.
Karrin Weisenthal, MD, MHS
Assistant Professor Emergency Medicine, Med Director ED Addiction Consult Team, Assoc Med Director Faster Paths
Boston Medical Center
Karri Weisenthal, M.D./M.H.S. is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, the Associate Medical Director of Faster Paths to Treatment, Boston Medical Center’s low-barrier addiction bridge clinic, and the Medical Director for the integrated ED Addiction Consult Team. She graduated cum laude from the Yale School of Medicine and completed her residency training in Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine fellowship at Boston Medical Center.
Dr. Weisenthal is an active researcher in the fields of Emergency and Addiction Medicine, and she was awarded the SAEM Foundation/NIDA Mentor Facilitated Training Award to develop a curriculum on the incorporation of harm reduction into the care of patients who access emergency services. Her current research interests include improving initiation and access to medications for opioid use disorder in the emergency department (ED) with an equity lens, ensuring smooth transitions of care from the ED to outpatient settings, and integrating a harm reduction approach into the care of patients in the ED.
No relevant financial disclosures.
Alexander Y. Walley
Associate Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine
Alexander Y. Walley, MD, MSc, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a general internist and addiction medicine specialist at Boston Medical Center. He has been the director of the Grayken Addiction Medicine Fellowship program since 2011. His research focuses on the medical complications of substance use, specifically HIV and overdose. He provides primary care and office-based addiction treatment for patients with HIV at Boston Medical Center. He founded BMC’s inpatient Addiction Consult Service in 2015 and the Faster Paths low-barrier access clinic in 2016. He is the medical director for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Opioid Overdose Prevention Program. Since 2007, the MDPH program has trained over 90,000 people in Massachusetts’s communities, including people at-risk for overdose and their social networks.
No relevant financial disclosures.
Accreditation & Credit Designation Statements
Joint Accreditation Statement
In support of improving patient care, the American Society of Addiction Medicine is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Physicians
The American Society of Addiction Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of .75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Nurses
This activity awards .75 Nursing contact hours.
PAs
ASAM has been authorized by the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) to award AAPA Category .75 CME credit for activities planned in accordance with AAPA CME Criteria. This activity is designated for .75 AAPA Category 1 CME credits. Approval is valid until 05/26/2028. PAs should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.
Pharmacists
This activity will offer .75 pharmacy contact hours (.075 CEUs). Pharmacists will be asked to provide identifying information (e-Profile ID and DOB in MMDD format) in order to receive credit and allow reporting to CPE Monitor. (UAN: JA0000141-0000-25-021-H01)
Note for pharmacists: Not all courses offer CPE Credit. For courses that do offer CPE Credit, pharmacists must claim credit and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate via the Pharmacist CPE Monitor Information survey within 30 days of completing the activity.
ASAM will not report CPE Credits claimed 30+ days after activity completion to ACPE. ASAM will not report CPE Credits without accurate and complete information.
Social Workers
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, ASAM is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. Social workers completing this course receive .75 general continuing education credits.
IPCE Credit
This activity was planned by and for the healthcare team, and learners will receive .75 Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credits for learning and change.
California Association for Drug/Alcohol Educators (CAADE)
This educational program is approved by CAADE: #CP40 999 1225.
California Association of DUI Treatment Centers (CADTP)
This educational program is approved by CADTP: #205.
California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP)
This educational program is approved by CCAPP: #OS-20-330-1224.
Other Professions - Continuing Education Credits (CEUs)
Upon completion of the activity and online evaluation, all other participants may request a certificate of participation. Participants may submit this certificate of participation to their professional organization/institute as documentation for completing this accredited continuing activity.
Maintenance of Certification (MOC) or Continuing Certification Programs (CCP)
This activity is designed to meet the requirements for MOC/CCP for several primary physician boards and for state licensing CME requirements. MOC Credit is only reported and designated for ABA, ABIM, ABP and ABS. By completing the online credit claim and evaluation, the learner permits ASAM to report credits to the appropriate Board. Learn more.
American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to .75 Medical Knowledge MOC points and patient safety MOC credit in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.
American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA)
This activity offers up to .75 CME credits, of which .75 credits contribute the patient safety CME component of the American Board of Anesthesiology’s redesigned Maintenance of Certification in AnesthesiologyTM (MOCA®) program, known as MOCA 2.0®. Please consult the ABA website, www.theABA.org, for a list of all MOCA 2.0 requirements.
Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesiology® and MOCA® are registered certification marks of the American Board of Anesthesiology®
American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to .75 Medical Knowledge MOC points and patient safety MOC credit in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.
American Board of Pediatrics (ABP)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the learner to earn up to .75 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABP MOC credit.
American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM)
This activity has been designed to satisfy the Lifelong Professional Development requirements of The American Board of Preventive Medicine’s Continuing Certification (CCP) requirements. These credits are not reported directly to ABPM. Please save your certificate for your records.
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN)
This activity has been designed to satisfy the CME requirements of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology’s Continuing Certification (CC) requirements. These credits are not reported directly to ABPN. Please save your certificate for your records.
American Board of Surgery (ABS)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME requirement of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit.
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC)
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada will recognize activities registered for CME for MOC as meeting the requirements for Royal College MOC Program Section 3 (Self-Assessment Programs) credits. Visit CME that Counts for Royal College MOC for more information.
Disclosure Information
In accordance with the disclosure policies of ASAM and Joint Accreditation, the effort is made to ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in all accredited continuing education activities. These policies include identifying and mitigating all relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies for those involved in the creation and dissemination of accredited continuing education. Click here to view the full disclosure listing.
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