“The Emergency Room” in the Drug Court System: Evaluating the Opioid Intervention Court

The Opioid Intervention Court (OIC) began in Buffalo, NY, in May 2017 as an intensive intervention for people at risk of overdose. We evaluated the OIC focusing on four major aims: (1) To describe OIC participant demographic characteristics, completion, and court engagement, from court administrative data; (2) To examine OIC completion by demographics and court engagement characteristics; (3) To describe participants’ OIC experiences from survey data; (4) To explore court team members’ perceptions and experiences based on interviews. Results suggest that participants who initiated MAT within the first week were more likely to complete OIC. Participants and personnel responded favorably to the OIC program.