St. Luke's Miners Memorial Hospital

St. Luke's Hospital - Miners Campus (SLM) serves rural Coaldale, Pennsylvania and both Schuylkill and Carbon Counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Through its community involvement and engagement, as well as Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs), SLM has identified that the target service area is at high risk for substance use disorder. The prevalence rate of opioid use disorder (OUD), opioid overdoses and opioid overdose mortality rates are all higher than national rates. Narcotics and over-the-counter drugs are used primarily by the community, including adolescents. Located in a rural medically underserved area, population to provider ratios are worse than the state and US top performers. Stigma, transportation barriers, and cost of treatment prevent most from accessing treatment and recovery. Prevention efforts need to be enhanced to curb the swelling rate of SUD. Based on its planning and outreach efforts in the 2018 Rural Communities Opioid Response Program - Planning and the 2019 Rural Community Opioid Response Program - Implementation as well as the Western Rural CHNA June 2022, SLM has identified prevention and treatment resources and developed strategic and workforce plans to reduce SUD-associated morbidity and mortality. This SLM consortium includes Panther Valley and Tamaqua Area School Districts, the Tamaqua and Coaldale Head Start programs, and the Clinical Outcomes Group, Inc. (COGI).