UNH's nurse practitioner programs will now include training in medication-assisted treatments for addiction.
Nurse practitioners, like doctors, can write prescriptions and can serve as a patient's primary care provider. Thanks to a new $450,000 federal grant, nurse practitioner students at UNH will now be trained in how to use medication to treat addiction.
Gene Harkless is the chair of the UNH department of nursing. She says the new program will increase the amount of addiction treatment available in the state as communities continue to grapple with the opioid epidemic.
"When you have primary care providers who are able to do this at the point at which people need the service, it's a very powerful intervention."
UNH says beginning next spring the program will train approximately 50 nurse practitioner students per year in medication-assisted treatment practices.
