By SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
A $200,000 grant awarded to Northwest Health Services will fund efforts to combat the opioid crisis in rural areas.
Northwest Health Services Director of Behavioral Health Terry Peterson said this is the second year the grant opportunity has been offered as part of the Rural Communities Opioid Response Grant Program.
“It’s kind of unique in that, the first year, all participants take part in what they call a planning phase where they will develop a strategic plan and then years two, three and four are what we call the actual implementation period,” Peterson said. “So, you’ve got a full year to work on a strategic plan to move forward with.”
The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy awarded the planning grants to Northwest Health Services and five other organizations this year. The funding is part of $24 million distributed to 40 states as part of the program.
Peterson is acting as the coordinator of the grant program for Northwest Health Services and said they are looking at creating a northwest Missouri rural health consortium.
“We’re planning on involving five different counties that we’ve kind of divided into four specific areas – the Atchison and Holt County areas and, of course, that would involve the Fairfax Community Hospital, the EMS system, county health departments, law enforcement and schools as well, that’s one of our planning areas,” Peterson said. “We’ve also got Nodaway County with Mosaic on board… then we also have Saint Luke’s joining in Grundy County and Livingston County, so it’s a pretty vast area that we’re going to cover here.”
Peterson said the program is designed to address substance abuse disorders and any type of medical and behavioral health needs in rural areas where people may have difficulty with transportation and access to healthcare resources. Peterson adds the grant will allow Northwest Health Services to expand their medication assisted treatment program into more rural clinics and potentially through telehealth.
“It’s kind of a three tiered process – prevention, treatment and recovery. We address the opioid use disorder and epidemic first, but it also ties into substance use. Alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamine use is still a rampant problem in the rural areas, as well as our area here,” Peterson said. “With the prevention piece, it’s going to enable us to go in and involve school districts as far as educational programs. There will be funding for additional training of law enforcement. Then, of course, also our medication assisted treatment offerings in the area and the therapy piece involving the recovery element.”
Peterson said there will be opportunities for community input as Northwest Health looks to identify community needs within the next year.