NASHVILLE – Saint Thomas Health announced that it has received $50,000 from the Cardinal Health Foundation’s Generation Rx Best Practices in Pain Medication Use grant program.

The grant will be used to support the Saint Thomas Health Pain Management, Prescription Protocols, and Patient Engagement program which addresses the opioid epidemic in Middle Tennessee. The program will initially be implemented within the Emergency Departments of eight hospitals in seven counties and later integrated into hospital in-patient units.

The program offers physician prescription guidelines, protocols, and Continuing Medical Education for Emergency Department physicians and residents.

“This grant will support our efforts to encourage a consistent policy and best practices for treating patients with acute and chronic pain and offering alternative pain management without prescriptive narcotics. Of significant importance are the individualized and jointly developed physician and case management patient care plans that will engage families and encompass links to Primary Care Providers.” said Dr. Allison Bollinger, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital and Director of Saint Thomas Health ED Collaborative. “This program is part of Saint Thomas Health’s continued commitment to opioid management solutions.”

Saint Thomas Health was one of 15 healthcare organizations across Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia to receive the Best Practices in Pain Medication Use grant.

As part of Cardinal Health’s Opioid Action Program, the Best Practices in Pain Medication Use grants are designed to support healthcare organizations work with their prescribers to reduce opioid prescriptions, find alternatives to opioid medication for pain management, and better engage their patients—with the ultimate goal of better patient outcomes.

Organizations receiving this grant will also come together regularly in a learning collaborative guided by pain management specialists from the Geisinger Health Clinic, to share their progress, lessons learned and best practices as they fight the opioid epidemic.

“All of the organizations selected for funding share our goal of turning the tide on the opioid epidemic,” said Jessie Cannon, Vice President of Community Relations at Cardinal Health. “Ultimately, we expect our grantees to learn from each other—and we will learn from them. As they develop best practices, our goal is to spread this work throughout the country, and foster solutions to this complex public health crisis.”

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