Objectives: Efforts to improve substance use disorder (SUD) care in the emergency department (ED) include deploying peer recovery coaches (PRCs).PRCs operate through a window of lived experience, providing motivational interviewing and linkage to recovery resources.This may include placement into residential treatment, which can be difficult from the ED given time constraints.We describe a novel clinical decision unit (CDU) pathway wherein PRCs facilitated discharge to residential SUD treatment.Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients presenting to a single hospital between June 2023 and May 2024.The sample was drawn from the consult list of PRCs.Data were obtained through direct export and manual extraction from the medical record.We performed 2 analyses to evaluate the effect of patient factors on pathway success.Results: In total, 75 encounters were included: 49 men (65.3%), 26 women (34.7%); age range, 18 to 69 years (median, 45 years).Forty-nine (65.3%) encounters were identified as Black, 19 (25.3%) as White, and 7 (9.3%) as other; 24 (32%) had a primary ED diagnosis related to substance use, and 38 (50.6%) had a primary psychiatric diagnosis (eg, suicidal ideation).PRCs placed 53 patients (70.6%) in residential treatment.Three patients had a change in
McKenzie et al. (Tue,) studied this question.