New London — Seeking to close what Mayor Michael Passero calls a “hole in the treatment continuum,” the city is working with Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and an addiction recovery organization to bring new outreach services to overdose patients.

“When you save someone with Narcan, they’ve got a second shot at life,” Passero said Wednesday, referring to the overdose antidote drug. “This is your opportunity. They may not be lucky the next time.”

At present, patients are often released without adequate guidance about where to get help, Passero said.

Jeanne Milstein, the city’s director of human services, has been working with the hospital and the Hartford-based Connecticut Center for Addiction Recovery to create services in L+M’s emergency department specifically for addicts who end up there after an overdose. The purpose of the program would be to pair the revived patients with specially trained counselors who could direct them into recovery programs and remain in contact with them after they leave.

“Just giving them a brochure isn’t going to do it,” Milstein said.

Milstein and Passero are hopeful that a program slated to start at L+M in February will fill the need. Funded by state grant funds, CCAR will be starting a pilot program at four hospitals including L+M and The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich to make “recovery coaches” available to overdose patients, said Deb Dettor, director of advocacy and education for CCAR. Modeled after the “sober companions” used by Alcoholics Anonymous, the program would make trained counselors available on an on-call basis seven days a week from 8 a.m. to midnight. Three counselors will be hired who would be dispatched to the four hospitals as needed, Dettor said.

“It’s a pilot, so we’re just starting the process of hiring the dispatchers and putting the program together,” she said. “The recovery counselors would be trained in how to work in the ER, how to work with families and handle a crisis. It will take some of the burden off the ER staff. It’ll be on-the-spot help to get people into treatment programs, then follow them and work with them to get them where they need to go.”

CCAR, she said, is also working to establish a recovery center in New London, where recovering addicts could find support services. Dettor said she hopes to have the center running by spring.

Laurel Holmes, director of community partnerships and population health at L+M, said the CCAR recovery coaches would replicate a similar program that began at The Westerly Hospital this summer, run by the Anchor Recovery Community Center in Providence. Westerly Hospital and L+M are both part of the Yale New Haven Health network.

“The staff there has praised it very much,” she said. “It’s another resource they can call on.”

Currently, Holmes said, a social worker recently assigned to the L+M emergency department often works with overdose patients and their families to direct them into recovery services.

In addition to adding the recovery coaches at L+M, Milstein has also been talking with L+M about a second program to enhance services for overdose patients. Yale New Haven Hospital, part of the parent network that L+M recently joined, has had Project Assert in its emergency department for the last 16 years, and Milstein said she is hoping to expand it to L+M.

Project Assert trains hospital staff to screen patients for drug and alcohol abuse and connect them with treatment services in the community. Training includes building relationships with clinicians, community organizations and treatment centers in the community. Thus far, more than 46,000 patients have been directed into treatment services through the program, according to a Project Assert brochure.

“This is a longer term project,” Milstein said.

Dana Marnane, spokeswoman for Yale New Haven, said the Yale New Haven Health network is open to possibly bringing Project Assert to L+M.

“While this is not part of our formal affiliation agreement,” she said in an email message, “one of the benefits of a partnership such as ours is that we can share best practices. We will review this opportunity among others with L+M.”

j.benson@theday.com