Corey Ranger is the former clinical nurse lead for the Victoria SAFER Initiative and has extensive practical experience in scaling up harm reduction services including overdose prevention and safe supply programming. Corey is also the president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association, and a nurse educator with the BCCDC.

Issue -
In July 2020, AVI Health & Community Services received funding from the federal government’s Substance Use and Addiction Program (SUAP) to develop, implement, and evaluate a flexible model and harm reduction model for prescribed safer supply. Over the course of two years, the program evolved and adapted to meet the emerging needs of people forced to access an unregulated and volatile drug supply. Novel interventions including fentanyl patches, fentanyl tablets, and injectable sufentanil have all been explored. Now a Knowledge Translation and Exchange (KTE) team comprised of people with lived/living experience, prescribers, nurses, and pharmacists has been assembled to offer capacity building and training to prospective safer supply providers.

Setting –
The country of Canada, with particular focus on programs in the province of British Columbia

Project –
Increasing accessibility to prescribed safer supply requires an assumption of risk and willingness to engage in novel solutions to the unregulated drug supply Building the capacity of prescribers, organizations, and health authorities, to make prescribed safer supply more readily available requires expertise. The SAFER KTE team is an interdisciplinary team made up entirely of people with experience providing and working within prescribed safer supply programs.

The project will follow no less than five other programs in Canada and offer training, resource development, needs assessments, protocol review/revision, 1:1 consultation, and a monthly virtual drop-in space for troubleshooting issues that may arise, all with the intention of increasing availability of prescribed safer supply.

Outcome –
This project is currently underway. A pre and post outcomes evaluation will determine program efficacy. These learnings will be shared in the form of an oral presentation with accompanying slide deck and one-pager.