Abstract
The ongoing opioid crisis has placed a considerable burden on acute care settings in North America. The present commentary outlines that the rising volume of patients with opioid‐related harms in acute care settings represents an often‐missed opportunity to address important health and social needs as well as facilitate access to addiction treatment services. It then describes an innovative, inter‐disciplinary model‐of‐care developed to address the needs of patients with a substance use disorder who present to the emergency department for medical care at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada.