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PACE to Recovery

The PACE to Recovery

The PACE to Recovery initiative of Piedmont Community Services, in partnership with Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, Sovah Health – Martinsville and funded by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services (DBHDS), will soon officially launch in the West Piedmont health district. A technical assistance team led by VTIPG (Mary Beth Dunkenberger, PI) has supported this initiative since Fall 2019.

The PACE to Recovery program will connect patients in the emergency department for substance use disorder, particularly opioid use disorder (OUD), to longer term treatment and recovery programs at the Piedmont Community Services Board. The hand-off among healthcare providers will be facilitated by peer navigators who have lived experience with recovery from substances.

Piedmont Community Services (PCS) and the technical assistance team at VT-IPG have developed outreach materials for consumers, healthcare providers, and elected officials to help explain the goals of the program, funding needs, and the services available. They have also partnered with Bridge to Treatment physicians, including Dr. John Burton, Carilion Clinic's chair of Emergency Medicine, to record a webinar describing the program model to answer questions for PACE to Recovery participating providers.

PCS reports that the technical assistance provided by Virginia Tech has generated very high quality program materials, and through facilitation of the multiple partner organizations, helped to expedite the program launch significantly. VTIPG received funding to assist with this initiative through the Virginia Higher Education Opioid Consortium (VHEOC), a pilot funding program connecting community service boards (CSBs) with University researchers to better address the opioid crisis in Virginia.