The hospital recently received a three-year $1.5 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration that will allow it to develop a Community Opioid Recovery Expansion or “CORE” program for the region.
“Statistics from the CDC show that age-adjusted deaths by overdose in our region are 17.1 per 100,000 while the national average is 15.6,” said Terri Lacroix-Kelty, director of Behavioral Health Services at the hospital. “Our goal is to build long-term recovery opportunities and improve health outcomes for individuals with opioid use disorder by expanding access to medication assisted treatment.”
The program will focus on expanding outreach to pregnant women with opioid use disorder and people with substance use disorder who present in crisis to local emergency departments.
The region of outreach will include Antrim, Benzie, Crawford, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Manistee, Missaukee, Roscommon, and Wexford counties.
Plans call for recruitment and training of staff members this fall for implementation of the program by Jan. 1. The medication assisted treatment program will involve having a team of qualified medical providers, behavioral health specialists, and peer support services that offer interventions to support patients within 48 hours of the request for care.
The program hopes to show a 75 percent reduction in a patient’s use of illicit opioid drugs or misuse of opioid prescriptions over a six-month period.
“Our desire is that over the life of the grant we will be able to develop and share program models that can be replicated in other Munson Healthcare hospitals,” Lacroix-Kelty said. “We’re excited to receive these funds and meet a really important need for our region.”