RSV 2022 Session 6A: The Health Wagon (Day 1)

This presentation highlighted The Health Wagon’s Rural Communities Opioid Response program, Strengthening and Expanding Substance Use Disorder and Opioid Use Disorder Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Programs in Southwest Virginia. The program is a consortium-based implementation that aims to reduce the morbidity and mortality of substance use disorder (SUD), including opioid use disorder (OUD), in rural communities in Southwest Virginia at the highest risk for SUD. By expanding opportunities for SUD/OUD programs and services in Central Appalachia, this program mitigates barriers and helps patients to access treatment and move closer to recovery. This implementation program, led by 12 local consortium members, serves high-risk counties experiencing increasing rates of morbidity and mortality from what the Appalachian Regional Commission terms the “diseases of despair”: alcoholism; overdosing of prescription and illegal drugs; suicide; and cirrhosis of the liver. Extreme stressors related to the collapse of the coal mining industry, including loss of jobs and health insurance, as well as persistent poverty, low educational attainment, physician shortages, and geographic isolation, contribute to exceptionally high rates of suicide, clinical depression, and substance abuse in Central Appalachia.

Presenter(s):

• Teresa Tyson, DNP, FNP-BC, FAANP, President and CEO, Saint Mary’s Health Wagon
• Paula Hill-Collins, DNP, FNP-BC, PPCNP, FAANP, Clinical Director, Saint Mary’s Health Wagon

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