STARS sobering-and-triage program reports steep drop in repeat clients and seeks expansion

Ryan Kent, a STARS representative, told the Spokane County Behavioral Health Advisory Board that the agency's sobering-and-triage site has enrolled 514 clients since December and that only about 8% of people were repeat admissions. "Of those 514 clients, only 8% were duplicates," Kent said. He added that 74 to 81 percent of clients moved from sobering into withdrawal management or detox during that period.

The program, Kent said, provides walk-in access and immediate case management and a warm handoff to higher levels of care in the same building. "You get a warm handoff. They get that exposure to treatment, to staff just from the very beginning," Kent said. He described same-day medication-assisted treatment (MAT) facilitation for clients who stay about eight hours: "A 100% of individuals that have come into our services…