Vancouver General Hospital launched an ED Peer Support Worker program in November 2024 to improve care for patients who use substances by reducing stigma and providing trauma-informed support. This study, led by Dr. Jessica Moe, evaluates its impact on patient care, engagement, and outcomes to help refine the program.
Click here to learn more!
Congratulations to Dr. Jessica Moe, recipient of the 2025 VCHRI Innovative and Translational Research Award for her study Promoting safety and equity in chaos: A feasibility study of peer support workers to support people who use drugs in emergency departments.
“This study will assess the feasibility of ED peer support workers with lived experience to improve care, equity and outcomes for patients who use non-medical opioids,” says Moe. “Our learnings will assist other EDs that are designing and rolling out similar peer programs with the potential to improve the care of patients with high-risk opioid use on a national scale.”
Click here to read the full article on the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute website
Congratulations to Preshon Pillay for winning 1st Place in the Undergraduate Oral Presentation at the University of Alberta’s Department of Emergency Medicine Research Day 2025! Their presentation on the EMED Study highlighting innovative approaches to improving care for people with opioid use disorder. A well-deserved recognition of their hard work and dedication!
VPSA’s Substance Use Disorder Patient and Provider Experience (SUDPPE) Task Group wants to help empower and support Vancouver Acute and Vancouver Community staff to provide the best possible environment for patients with substance use disorder. To that end, the group is funding a pilot project to support initiatives that enhance the care environment.
This first project builds on the work emergency physician Dr. Jessica Moe has been doing for several years with patients with SUD. Two of her earlier projects have been supported by Small Steps, Big Idea funding.
“We’re now turning our attention to understanding patient and provider experiences with peer support workers in emergency departments who support people who use drugs,” explained Dr. Moe. “ED peer support workers were introduced at VGH this past November, but medical staff haven’t had the opportunity to explore the insights the peers have gathered from their interactions with patients as well as with health-care providers. These are important as they will allow us to refine the peer project and improve engagement and collaboration.”
To read the full article, click here.
Our team had a fantastic time presenting at DEM Research Day 2025! It was an excellent opportunity to share our work, connect with other researchers, and engage in meaningful discussions.
Here’s what our team presented:
Our team is proud to celebrate a major achievement as our Principal Investigator, Dr. Jessica Moe, has been appointed as Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Emergency Response to the Opioid Overdose Crisis by the Government of Canada! Among only six new and renewed UBC Faculty of Medicine researchers selected last year, this prestigious recognition highlights Dr. Moe’s pioneering contributions to addressing the opioid crisis and stands as a testament to her visionary leadership, innovative research, and unwavering commitment to saving lives and advancing public health.
For more information about the other UBC researchers among the Canada Research Chair Program click here.
By: Khushi Dabla, BSc Madison Newby, BA Munsa Gill Kang Jessica Moe, MD, FRCPC, DABEM, MA, MSc
Proud of our team on their publication in the British Columbia Medical Journal (BCMJ)! Click here to read more.
Check out our social media platforms below:
Instagram: @dr.jessicamoe
Twitter/X: @jmoe_ubc
LinkedIn: Dr. Jessica Moe
Our team had the opportunity to showcase our recent projects at DEM Research Day 2024. Here’s what we presented:
Canadians spent $6,299 per capita on healthcare in 2016, with emergency department (ED) expenses accounting for an increasing proportion of costs. Policy makers have identified frequent ED users as incurring disproportionately high healthcare costs due to high use of ED and other health services, while clinicians consider them high-risk patients.
Dr. Jessica Moe, an Emergency Physician at Vancouver General Hospital and Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, is leading a research study to identify distinct clinical subgroups of low-risk frequent users, to develop interventions specifically targeting identified subgroups to redirect care to lower cost settings.
“By carefully characterising these groups, our team will have a higher likelihood of developing successful interventions,” says Dr. Moe. “We are using an innovative approach to precisely identify clinically important patient subgroups with distinct characteristics and visit patterns. Our methodology also allows us to identify previously unanticipated subgroups.”
Future plans for the research team include: engaging with patient and allied health partners; recruiting additional patients to provide the perspectives of each clinical subgroup; and using qualitative methods to explore the development and modes of pilot-implementing and evaluating each intervention developed.
To read the full article on the Population Data BC (PopData) website, visit here: https://www.popdata.bc.ca/news/project_approval_18-139
Our Research Manager, Seth Long, presents at the 2023 Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) Research Conference on behalf of the Evaluating Microdosing in the Emergency Department: A randomized controlled trial of buprenorphine/naloxone (EMED) study.