Giving Compass is teaming up with SolutionsU, a platform that connects you to stories about responses to the world’s challenges. SolutionsU is a project of the Solutions Journalism Network: a nonprofit organization that seeks to rebalance the news, providing readers with critical reporting on society’s problems and stories that explain how individuals, institutions, and communities are responding.

Want to learn more about solutions journalism? Giving Compass interviewed David Bornstein, co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, who helped break it down for us.

We are featuring a collection of solution journalism stories from their searchable database, focusing on opiates and the healthcare system.

Healthcare workers are often the first people an addict consciously interacts with after an overdose, but unfortunately, many hospitals and healthcare providers miss an opportunity to affect change in addicts' lives. The status quo is saving a patient from their current overdose, and then sending them back on the streets with no resources, and few options other than returning to their addiction.

The stories in this collection offer glimpses into programs that are working to change this by reducing opiate use in the first place, and providing longer-term rather than episodic support to patients who have already become addicted.

Typically, ER doctors are only authorized to write prescriptions for three-days worth of buprenorphine, commonly called Suboxone, to ease a patient's withdrawal symptoms. But if the addict hasn't made it into treatment within this 72-hour window, they often begin using again. This puts the user at high risk for repeated overdoses that are often fatal. In Syracuse, NY, an emergency room doctor is working to change this by making addiction training available to ER doctors so that they can prescribe Suboxone for longer periods, giving addicts more time to detox and find their way into treatment.

In Wilmington, NC, crisis teams are helping patients who have overdosed find their way from the ER and into treatment facilities instead of prison, and healthcare providers in an array of fields — including dentists — are becoming more selective about who they prescribe opiates to, and they are looking for warning signs of addiction in their patients.  Finally, providers are beginning to approach addicts with compassion rather than disdain, as is the case in Philadelphia, where addicts are receiving support and guidance to find their way into desperately-needed long term treatment.

How you can make an impact in this area:

Look beyond addiction. In order to stem the opioid crisis in the U.S., we cannot look at everything through an addiction lens, which tends to put the onus on individuals who are afflicted with substance use disorders The Center for High Impact Philanthropy (CHIP) lists four strategies for lifting the burden of addiction, including improving access to evidence-based treatment and funding innovation for prevention through proven programs such as the Harm Reduction Coalition.

Be in it for the long haul. A study from Stanford Social Innovation Review of direct-service opioid prevention and treatment organizations in Indiana showed that while budget size doesn’t necessarily lead to impact in this field, there is a certain amount needed for sustainability: roughly $2 million. Large, multi-year, unrestricted grants can help give substance abuse-related orgs the capacity they need to scale.

Focus on underserved communities. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people in rural areas of the U.S. are nearly twice as likely to overdose on prescription painkillers as people in big cities — and the Native American population is disproportionally represented. Philanthropists can help address this gap through programs such as TelePain consults, a service from the University of Washington that uses technology to connect professional pain specialists with Native people and those who live in isolated regions. Grantmakers In Health has a guide for funders in addressing the needs of rural communities and older adults as well.

Read the full collection about opiates and the healthcare system by Aidan Noble-Goodman at SolutionsU.