Systems of Care for Addictive Disorders: Design, Delivery, and Impact

Titel : Systems of Care for Addictive Disorders: Design, Delivery, and Impact
Chair: Yasser Khazaal
Symposium overview
Evidence-based addiction care aims to support people across all phases of recovery, yet many still cycle through emergency and inpatient services with early readmissions. To respond effectively, services must integrate hospital programs with strong community components, embed peers with lived experience, and reach people where substance use actually occurs. This symposium brings together complementary perspectives—from national service organization to peer-led approaches and field outreach—to illustrate how integrated care pathways can improve engagement, safety, and continuity of care.
Talk 1 – Prof. Fatima El Omari: Addiction treatment in Morocco: opportunities and challenges
This talk will outline Morocco’s current addiction-care landscape, including system organization, access barriers, and the interface between psychiatric, primary-care, and harm-reduction services.
Talk 2 – Prof. Yasser Khazaal: Peer support for addictive disorders
Focusing on peer workers and mutual-aid integration within clinical pathways, this presentation will summarize mechanisms of action, implementation models across hospital and community settings, and practical challenges.
Talk 3 – Dr. Louise Penzenstadler: Facing the crack crisis with outreach in Geneva
This talk introduces a low-threshold, mobile outreach program responding to crack use in Geneva. Program components—street-level engagement, safer-use education, linkage to care, and partnerships with housing and social services—will be described.

Prof Fatima El Omari: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Mohammed V University of Rabat, Morocco
Prof Yasser Khazaal: Addiction Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital and Lausanne University, Lausanne, Switzerland
Department of Psychiatry and Addictology, Montréal University, Montréal, Canada
Dr Louise Penzenstadler: Addiction Division, Department of Psychiatry, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland

Louise Penzenstadler