The Emergency Department at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center is the first in the Nation to develop and implement ALTO®, the Alternatives to Opiates Program, a highly successful unique alternative approach to acute pain management without the use of opioids and the potential addictions associated with opioid use.
The ALTO® Program was launched in the emergency department in early January 2016, with 300+ patients treated with alternative protocols since then, patients who did not receive opioids when they previously would have been treated with opioids. The ALTO® Program uses targeted non-opioid medications, trigger point injections, nitrous oxide, and ultrasound guided nerve blocks to tailor its patients’ pain management needs and avoid opioids whenever possible, for example, in cases of kidney stones, acute low back pain, broken bones, acute headache and migraine pain.
A model for other hospitals and healthcare providers nationwide, the Emergency Department at St. Joseph’s Health – the busiest ED in New Jersey with more 158,000 patient visits in 2015 – is an innovator in Emergency Medicine, having established such programs as the first Geriatric Emergency Department in the US, the first ED-based Palliative Care Program (Life Sustaining Management and Alternatives) in the US, and now, the ALTO® program.
