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Top honoree, Community Achievement in Health Care
CHOICE: Pregnancy and Substance Use Treatment Program
Community Health Network
About a decade ago, a pregnant patient visited Community Hospital East’s Dr. Anthony Sanders seeking help for her heroin addiction.
At the same time, Community labor and delivery nurses were noticing an increase in the number of patients experiencing opioid addiction, and the special care nursery noted a sharp increase in the number of babies admitted for neonatal abstinence disorder.
But few treatment options existed.
“Everybody was acting like they were somebody else’s problem, and nobody would say, ‘They’re my patient,’” Brooke Schaefer, director of the Perinatal Substance Use Disorder Program at Community Health, told IBJ.
Sanders and his team were determined to not allow those patients to fall through the cracks.
So a Community Health team, including Sanders and Schaefer, developed a comprehensive program called CHOICE (Change, Hope, Overcome, Inspire, Compassion and Educate) to help pregnant women struggling with addiction get the treatment they need.
The program is offered at Community Hospital East and Community Hospital South and in Madison County at Community Hospital Anderson.
Women who seek recovery through CHOICE are connected with a multidisciplinary team that specializes in non-judgmental support and provides medical care for both the mom and baby until the baby turns 2.
The program includes pregnancy care, inpatient recovery-focused care, medication-assisted therapy, and individualized and group therapy with therapists specializing in care for women with substance use disorder.
A patient’s experience begins with an in-patient stay, where the mother’s and baby’s health are checked and monitored. The goal is for the patient to stop using illicit substances and start using treatment methods that make sense for her.
The program has strong relationships with a variety of support programs to help ensure new moms are on a path to recovery that works best for their families.
The care is individualized based on the patient’s goals. Some women want to have a safe and healthy pregnancy but don’t want to parent. CHOICE supports them through that.
Others want to get sober and parent. And CHOICE is there to help with that.
Since its inception, the program has served about 500 families.
Schaefer, who is also a nurse practitioner, said similar programs exist in the state, but none are as robust as Community’s.
The CHOICE team has six full-time staff members, but because the care the program provides is multidisciplinary, many other people are involved. And the program employs peer-recovery coaching from caregivers who are in long-term recovery and trained to provide recovery support to others.
Having someone on the team who has been where the patients are helps build rapport and buy-in, Schaefer said. It changes the speed with which patients believe in the program.
She said the work CHOICE is doing is “absolutely lifesaving.”
“These women hide from care in large part because of the stigma they receive. When they come to us and get treated with care and dignity, they engage in care,” she said. “So, the chance of them surviving this disease explodes. … They know they don’t have to deliver this baby in a hotel room and try to hide out. They know they can come in, and we are going to help them.”•
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