Ryan Wade, MD, medical director of the Freedom Institute, an addiction treatment center in New York City, joined Becker's to discuss his new leadership role and the transition from virtual to in-person care.
Dr. Wade, a psychiatrist specializing in treating co-occurring disorders, also serves as director of addiction services at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn., and holds academic positions at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: Congratulations on your recent medical director appointment. What are your plans for the center?
Dr. Ryan Wade: First of all … the more publicity, the more attention we can get to this sort of stuff, the better. I think it can be really helpful both in destigmatizing addiction, substance use and mental health, as well as drawing attention from the public sector, funding and all sorts of governmental influence on behavioral healthcare, because whether we like it or not, it's there.
As far as the plans, the broad plan is to return the Freedom Institute to the quality reputation it once had. The institute was hit really hard by COVID. It was a difficult time for everyone. Outpatient services suffered a lot, especially intensive outpatient programs where everything's group-based. It's a lot more difficult to have the same sort of group dynamics and connection with only virtual meetings. We saw it at Silver Hill ourselves in terms of the number of folks in intensive outpatient programs. Everything was dwindling around that time, and we were fortunate to have other types of treatment. People could still come here in person, so we weren't as affected as the Freedom Institute, but it's been around a long time. It has a great reputation. We have families asking about [the Institute] here at Silver Hill. We're trying to make aftercare planning programs, it's really trying to get back, essentially on the map. Our doors are opening this week, so we're progressing back to where we were and then once we're getting functional and getting our feet wet with all of that, we can look at growth opportunities and see what's needed there in terms of outpatient support.
Q: What do you think will be the biggest challenge to bringing things back in person?
RW: Coming back in person after using telehealth is our biggest challenge. We're crossing the hurdle where people have less fear than they used to in terms of being in groups and in enclosed situations. There's less catastrophic news coverage about COVID and hospitalization rates, death rates, all sorts of things. So as a collective, we're crossing that which was previously the biggest barrier for the institute itself. Otherwise, the largest barrier is likely going to be acquiring that patient flow and referral sources. The pandemic ravaged all this. It seems that the places that went in person a bit sooner have taken up a lot of the patients who prefer in-person care. In reality, it's not so much, 'Hey, can we get our staff to come back in person? Do people want to come back in person?' The answer to all those things, I think it's yes. It's a matter of how we generate the flow so we don't have only two people in a group. We need to have a pretty robust group of attendees if we want it to be meaningful. The double benefit of group-based therapies is that you're learning from and connecting with your peers. So we have to get bodies through the doorway to facilitate that.