Mercy Health Cincinnati Signs Collaboration Agreements with Ten Addiction Treatment Providers

Mercy Health - Cincinnati which provides advanced, quality, compassionate care in your neighborhood through its care network, announces that it has signed collaboration agreements with 10 addiction treatment providers with locations throughout Cincinnati. The addiction treatment providers include:

• BrightView
• City Gospel Mission
• Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services
• Health Experiences
• Joseph House
• Margaret Mary Health
• Northland/Ridge
• Sunrise Treatment Center
• Talbert House
• Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Programs

Under the new collaboration agreements, Mercy Health and these providers will co-develop care coordination programs to expand access to, standardization of and continuity of care between Mercy Health hospitals and providers and treatment centers. Mercy Health will provide short-term, hospital-based detox for patients before transitioning them to outpatient providers for long-term medically-assisted treatment and related support services. 

Mercy Health has as one of its ministry-wide objectives to make a meaningful, positive impact on the opiate crisis. A number of Mercy Health’s efforts are focused on prevention and intervention, such as providing speakers on the consequences of addiction at area schools and screening all patients who come into its emergency departments so that it can refer those at risk for addiction to resources for help.

“Currently, we also provide short-term detox treatment options at Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital to patients seeking to break their addiction and we plan to expand the program to our other hospitals by the end of the first quarter of 2018. However, without timely access to ongoing addiction treatment services following detox, these patients are vulnerable to relapse, overdose and death,” said Mike Garfield, Mercy Health – Cincinnati CEO and SVP.

“In what we believe is a new patient care model for the region, these agreements signal true cooperation between Mercy Health and its addiction treatment partners. The agreements will help ensure that patients receive needed care and ongoing treatment services in a coordinated and timely fashion. They also allow us to further act on our opioid initiative by growing our ability to address and be more responsive to the enormous opioid problem facing our communities,” added Garfield.

Mercy Health selected its collaboration partners based on the providers’ commitment to:

• Objectives that will improve overall quality and experience of care and lower costs
• Establish metrics to track improved outcomes
• Adhere to care coordination and opiate response guidelines