Ellen Quigley is the Vice President of Programs at the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation An Interview with Dr. Krista Brucker, Emergency Room Physician and Co-founder, Project POINT Background In 2016, the Richard M. Foundation awarded a $700,000 grant to support the expansion of an innovative program called Project POINT (Planned Outreach, Intervention, Naloxone and Treatment) at Eskenazi Hospital to tackle the devastating impact of the opioid crisis. This holistic program serves individuals who are brought into the emergency room (ER) after an overdose by connecting them to treatment and the other services they need to rebuild their lives. Dr. Krista Brucker, who helped launch Project POINT in 2015, shared insights […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The opioid epidemic continues to plague Indianapolis and the rest of the state. With the rise in opioid misuse, there has been a parallel surge in pregnant women with opioid use disorder. Infants born to opioid-dependent mothers are at a high risk for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. NAS, which results from babies experiencing withdrawal from opioids once they leave the womb, leads to dehydration and poor weight gain, vomiting, tremors, irritability, high-pitched crying and seizures. With the rise of opioid epidemic, the incidence of NAS nationwide tripled from 1999 to 2013. NAS is becoming so common […]