Kaia Renouf

Kaia (she/her) is a project manager for CA Bridge, focusing on expanding access to low-barrier medication assisted treatment for Substance Use Disorder. Kaia’s diverse background in museum public programming design, luxury sales, and organizing street-based volunteer initiatives give her a unique perspective on how we communicate across populations about addiction and recovery. In 2023, she spearheaded an initiative operationalizing the naloxone acquisition and distribution processes for hospitals, ultimately yielding a 203% increase in the number of naloxone units ordered by California hospitals between 2022 and 2024. Her current work focuses on building networks of care in communities across the state, with the goal of same-day access to medications regardless of insurance coverage. Kaia lives in Oakland, CA, and enjoys taking long aimless strolls through the city with an audiobook.

CA Bridge, launched in 2018, is dedicated to saving lives by ensuring people who use drugs have 24/7 access to medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) through every emergency department in the state. As a program of the Public Health Institute (PHI), a non-profit organization, CA Bridge benefits from over 50 years of PHI's commitment to advancing health equity globally. CA Bridge has been at the forefront of expanding MOUD in emergency departments, scaling up to 83% of California’s 331 emergency departments in just five years. This rapid practice transformation is made possible through a combination of factors including grant funding to hospitals, extensive protocol and tool development, training for both clinicians and navigators, coaching from clinical experts, and research and evaluation.