As part of an overall state strategy to reduce overdose deaths, Illinois recently released the State Overdose Action Plan (SOAP) that includes a key substance use disorder (SUD) program developed by HMA.
The State of Illinois’s partnership with health management associates has been a real bright spot in our attempts to address the opioid overdose crisis in Illinois. Their professionalism and expertise has really helped us ramp up this learning collaborative for persons in the correction system in Illinois to the point where we have rapidly brought almost 10 counties on board within less than a year to begin to treat people with medication-assisted treatment within in their county jail system. For us, that’s a real win.
Kathleen Monahan, State Opioid Response Director, Substance Use Prevention and Recovery, Department of Human Services, Illinois
HMA is working with the Illinois Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery (SUPR) to implement The Learning Collaborative to Support Medication Assisted Recovery (MAR) Implementation for Justice-Involved Individuals program. The program brings together criminal justice healthcare and custodial staff, drug court staff, county SUD and behavioral health programs, and county administrators to form an integrated learning collaborative and help jails develop the capacity to provide MAR in the jail.
Often people are arriving in a correctional institution having been on medication outside, and they aren’t continued on that medication once they enter that institution. We wanted to rectify that and we thought that the best way to reach multiple disparate siloed audience like counties, county jails, sheriffs, and the court system, was through a learning collaborative that would be a long term way for these entities to work together, share best practices, collaborate, and move our entire state forward.
Kathleen Monahan, State Opioid Response Director, Substance Use Prevention and Recovery, Department of Human Services, Illinois
Offering MAR to individuals with opioid use disorder while in jail has been shown to reduce the risk of death by up to 50%, currently, nine jails in Illinois are participating in this program. The goal of the SOAP is to continue to engage jails across Illinois. To participate or learn more contact [email protected].