Gateway Foundation Expands Project Warm Hand-Off with Cigna Grant

With a $109,000 grant from the Cigna Foundation, Gateway Foundation is expanding its Project Warm Hand-off, an initiative aimed at working to remove barriers to treatment for individuals struggling with opioid use. Funds from the grant are being used to add three hospitals in DuPage County, Illinois, to the program, bringing its total reach to 13 hospitals in the state.

Project Warm Hand-off was launched in September 2017 and presented at the 2018 Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit. The program puts Gateway addiction treatment specialists in the emergency departments of participating hospitals to provide care coordination, recovery coach engagement and case management in the transition to treatment.

“This grant will get more people consenting to treatment at the moment they are discharged from a hospital,” Gateway Foundation VP of strategic partnerships and engagement Teresa Garate said in a news release announcing the grant. “We know from experience that engaging individuals at this exact moment increases their likelihood of engaging in active treatment.”