Boulder Care wins $1.8M NIH grant for telehealth addiction care research

Boulder Care has received a $1.8 million NIH grant to test telehealth addiction treatment pathways in settings where access and continuity of care are hardest to sustain. The study is designed to generate evidence that could help scale medication treatment for opioid use disorder in reentry, pregnancy, Tribal Nations and other high-barrier care settings.

Why it matters: - Roughly 7 million Americans have opioid use disorder. - Medications for opioid use disorder reduce overdose risk and save lives, but fewer than one in five people with opioid use disorder receive treatment. - The grant targets settings where the care gap is widest, including community corrections, pregnancy and postpartum care, Tribal Nations health systems, and transitions from residential treatment and emergency departments.

What happened: - Boulder Care announced $1.8 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. - NIDA selected Boulder Care as a direct awardee. - The company will use the grant to design, deliver and evaluate telehealth addiction treatment pathways in complex care settings. - The research is supported under award number R44DA061386.

The details: - Boulder Care will tailor telehealth MOUD pathways for patients in five settings: community corrections and reentry programs, pregnancy and postpartum care, Tribal Nations healthcare systems, residential treatment transitions, and emergency department transitions. - Boulder Care will partner with five dedicated sites for the study. - Patients will receive a smartphone preloaded with the Boulder app, plus cellular service and Wi-Fi, to help them stay connected. - The study will test setting-specific infrastructure and support between care settings. - Researchers will measure care continuity, retention, employment, incarceration, emergency department visits, hospital visits and quality-of-life outcomes. - Boulder Care said the work builds on its eight-year research record in addiction medicine, including NIH-funded studies and peer-reviewed publications. - Boulder Care said its research team will work with community-based partners on the project. - The company’s website is the company’s mission page. - Boulder Care’s LinkedIn profile is the company’s LinkedIn page.

Between the lines: - NIH backing signals federal interest in telehealth as a way to reach patients who are often left out of addiction care and research. - The study is aimed at practical implementation, not just clinical efficacy, which could make the results more relevant to health plans, policymakers and health systems. - The focus on transitions in and out of care suggests Boulder Care is trying to solve a major failure point in addiction treatment: keeping patients engaged when life circumstances change.

What's next: - Boulder Care will run the study with five sites and evaluate whether telehealth pathways improve retention and real-world outcomes. - The company expects the findings to help shape how addiction treatment is funded and delivered at scale. - If the pathways prove effective, the research could support broader use of telehealth MOUD in high-barrier settings.

The bottom line: - Boulder Care is using federal research funding to test whether telehealth can close some of the biggest gaps in addiction treatment access and continuity.