Enhancing Pharmacist Involvement in Care in Medically Assisted Treatment for Opioid Dependence (EPIC-MATOD)

This project has now been completed and works are underway to upscale EPIC-MATOD. Please refer to the new project page for more details.

Principal Investigators: Kirsty Morgan (Peninsula Health), Prof Suzanne Nielsen (MARC)

Co-researchers: John Jackson (Centre for Medicine Use and Safety), Sarah Lord (Harm Reduction Victoria), Dr David Jacka (Monash Health), A/Professor Dennis Petrie (Centre for Health Economics), Dr Ali Cheetham (MARC)

Access to MATOD is poor in many parts of Victoria, with the large geographic disparity in service provision. The Enhancing Pharmacist Involvement in Care (EPIC)-MATOD project has developed a model of care to expand treatment capacity by using community pharmacists at their full scope of practice, in collaboration with MATOD prescribers, in areas where access to prescribers is poor. The project is led by the Monash Addiction Research Centre and Frankston Mornington Primary Care Partnership’s RAD-FMP initiative in collaboration with local and state government and peak professional and consumer organisations.

The model of care will be piloted with patients at a number of MATOD pharmacies in the Frankston Mornington Peninsula (FMP) region. The pilot study aims to determine whether a collaborative model improves treatment access and retention, identify factors important for successful implementation, and determine the cost per patient of delivering the model of care. Findings will help identify the resources and strategies needed to scale up a collaborative model of care to other geographic areas with similar needs to expand access to MATOD.

The pilot study is funded through the Victorian Department of Health through an Alcohol and Drug Research Innovation Agenda (ADRIA) Research Grant.

Project Funders

Victorian Department of Health, Frankston Mornington Peninsula Primary Care Partnership

ADRIA - The ADRIA Program is an initiative by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in conjunction with the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA).

Project Partners

A collaboration between MARC, Peninsula Health, Frankston Mornington Peninsula Primary Care Partnership, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Harm Reduction Victoria, Pharmacy Guild, Australian Medical Association, Area 4 Pharmacotherapy Network and Frankston Council.

Publications

Nielsen, S., Graham, F., Hadi, M.H., Grist, E., Rowland, B., Jackson, J., Lord, S., Dostal J.,
Wood, P., Morgan, K., Petrie, D., Cheetham, A. (2026). A multisite implementation-efficacy trial of
a pharmacist-led model of collaborative care for Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid
Dependence: Outcomes of the EPIC-MATOD trial. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 22(2), 292-310. DOI: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2025.10.009

Nielsen, S, Cheetham, A, Jackson, J, Lord, S, Petrie, D, Jacka, D, Picco, L, & Morgan, K. (2021). A prospective, multisite implementation-efficacy trial of a collaborative prescriber-pharmacist model for Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Dependence: Protocol for the EPIC-MATOD study. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (In Press). DOI: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2021.11.007

Cheetham, A, Morgan, K, Jackson, J, Lord, S, & Nielsen, S. (2022). Informing a collaborative-care model for delivering medication assisted treatment for opioid dependence (MATOD): An analysis of pharmacist, prescriber and patient perceptions. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (In Press). DOI: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2022.09.009

Grist, E., Cheetham, A., Jackson, J., Wood, P., Lord, S., Pricolo, A., Armstrong, F., Morgan, K., Nguyen, C., Tran, T. and Nielsen, S. (2024), Clinical effectiveness of pharmacist administration of long-acting injectable buprenorphine: Findings from the EPIC-MATOD study. Drug Alcohol Rev., 43: 1856-1858. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13856

Find out more

Contact Professor Suzanne Nielsen

Monash Addiction Research Centre

Monash University Peninsula Campus

Moorooduc Hwy

Frankston, Victoria 3199

Australia

T: +61 3 9904 4641

E: suzanne.nielsen@monash.edu