East Tennessee Healthcare Holdings Inc

East Tennessee Healthcare Holdings, Inc. d/b/a Overmountain Recovery (OMR) is a not-for-profit outpatient opioid treatment, drug rehabilitation program in Johnson City, Tennessee. In 2016, Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA) and East Tennessee State University Research Foundation (ETSU) formed OMR to treat people in its service area with heroin, morphine and prescription opioid addictions, including high-acuity individuals with co-occurring mental and physical health conditions, as well as vulnerable populations such as women with substance-exposed pregnancies. The service area consists of 39 cities and 11 counties including: Carter, Greene, Hancock, Hawkins, Johnson, Sullivan, Unicoi and Washington in Tennessee and Lee, Scott and Washington in Virginia, including the City of Bristol, Virginia. According to the Tennessee Department of Health's report "2021 Tennessee Drug Overdose Deaths and "2021 Drug Overdose Hospital Discharges in Tennessee", in 2021, there were 3,043 overdose deaths involving opioids in Tennessee-an age-adjusted rate for all opioid overdose deaths of 45.7 per 100,000 persons. Over the five-year period from 2017-2021, the percentage of decedents who filled an opioid prescription in the Controlled Substance Monitoring Database in the 60 days before death decreased continually. These trends reflect the decrease of deaths involving prescription opioids and increase in deaths involving illicit opioids, such as fentanyl, the current driving force of the epidemic of overdose deaths. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) or Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS) may occur when a woman uses opioids during pregnancy. As stated by the Tennessee Department of Health's report "Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Surveillance Annual Report 2021", the rate of cases of NAS per 1,000 live births reported to the Tennessee Department of Health decreased slightly from 10.2 in 2020 to 9.1 in 2021. The decrease follows a slight increase in the prior year and consistent decrease from 2017 to 2019. This may emphasize the negative impact that COVID-19 had on both the consistency and timeliness of hospital reporting and the efforts made to reduce drug use in Tennessee. OMR's Opioid Treatment Program represents a unique comprehensive, innovative, holistic model of care for this patient population by bringing together the local academic and research resources of ETSU; coupled with the medical care expertise and capital resources of MSHA. These two entities have also contracted with Frontier Health to provide therapeutic and recovery-based services. OMR is only one component of a larger focus to incorporate education, outreach, research, and evaluation, all aimed at making a significant difference in the management of the chronic disease of addiction. OMR is an entity that emphasizes evidence-based, long-term treatment that addresses substance abuse disorder (SUD) as a chronic, relapsing disease. Overmountain is focused not just on providing a service, but on making the community a healthier and safer place to live, work, learn and do business by reducing the burden of addiction plaguing its service area. Both ETSU and MSHA have long-time roots in the community. ETSU, founded in 1911, is a state-supported, coeducational institution. ETSU currently has a student population of nearly 14,000 undergraduate, graduate, medical and pharmacy students. Although most students are from Tennessee and the surrounding southeastern region, all 50 states and 71 countries are also represented. The main campus is in Johnson City, Tennessee with off campus sites in Kingsport and Sevierville in Tennessee, Abingdon in Virginia, and Asheville in North Carolina. ETSU has a strong health care focus with colleges of pharmacy, clinical and rehabilitative health sciences, nursing, public health, and medicine. Mountain States Health Alliance, founded in 1998, is part of a large, integrated, not-for-profit health care system based in Johnson City, Tennessee. On February 1, 2018, Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA) and Wellmont Health System (WHS) merged to form Ballad Health (Ballad), a tax-exempt entity and parent company of MSHA and WHS. Ballad is an integrated healthcare delivery system consisting of 21 hospitals in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, including a Level 1 Trauma Center, dedicated children's hospital, several community hospitals, three critical access hospitals, a behavioral health hospital, long-term care facilities, home care and hospice services, retail pharmacies, outpatient services and a comprehensive medical management corporation. Ballad works closely with an active independent medical community and community stakeholders to improve the health and well-being of over one million people in 29 counties of the Appalachian Highlands in Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, Northwest North Carolina, and Southeast Kentucky. OMR is committed to its patients' recovery. OMR provides care that is customized to their patients' personal needs and takes into consideration housing, education, employment, legal issues, security, transportation and other areas in order to gain a complete picture of the individual. Another key facet of patient-centric approach to care is to have a reliable way of getting input from patients. OMR convenes focus groups of patients who meet quarterly with the director. In FY22, OMR admitted 278 patients into their program. During FY23, OMR admitted a record breaking 368 patients. This was an increase in the monthly intake average by 32.4%. The average monthly census increased from 463 patients in FY22 to 546 in FY23, which is an increase of almost 18%. OMR provided food for over 100 patients and their families for Thanksgiving in 2022 and plans are underway to provide food for more families than ever before for Thanksgiving 2023. The team at OMR donated all the items provided in the food boxes. PROMOTE COMMUNITY HEALTH: OMR's Community Advisory Committee meets quarterly to keep the community abreast of what is happening at OMR. This committee is comprised of members who reside in the community, as well as churches, businesses, and Ballad leadership. ETSU has an addiction medicine fellowship and OMR is a participating site. During FY23, two fellows spent time at OMR. This program will assist in preparing physicians to treat persons with substance use and behavioral disorders in OMR's service area. OMR also has a Clinical Affiliation Agreement with ETSU to provide clinical experience to students enrolled in the Clinical Psychology program of ETSU. The agreement runs for one year and is a paid position. One student was at OMR during FY23 as part of this paid Clinical Affiliation Agreement. A doctoral student from the College of Public Health at ETSU completed an internship at OMR. OMR continues to contract with the Department of Health to provide Hepatitis C rapid testing. OMR participated in several community events throughout the year. This included hosting an event to educate patients on resources available to them. OMR also participated in an event at the Gray Fairgrounds in Gray, TN offering free services to the community such as dental and vision. We are collaborating with a group called Partnership to End Addiction. Their goal is to transform how our nation addresses addiction by empowering families, advancing effective care, shaping public policy, and changing culture. AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS: Overmountain regularly measures and reports on the performance of its program. OMR tracks both efficiency and effectiveness measures. Because of this dedication to quality, OMR earned its first three-year accreditation from CARF (the Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) in August 2018. CARF three-year accreditation is the highest accreditation level awarded to organizations like Overmountain. OMR was resurveyed in July of 2021 and again received a three-year accreditation. To receive three-year accreditation from CARF, organizations are put through a rigorous ongoing process that includes, among other requirements, live on-site surveys. These requirements ensure OMR's program meets CARF's high standards of quality and accountability.