California emergency rooms saw more than 21,000 visits related to opioid overdoses within the past year, according to the California Overdose Surveillance Dashboard.
On the Central Coast, Dignity Health’s Substance Use Navigators (SUN) program is attempting to combat the issue. At Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, and French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, 29 providers in the SUN program care for residents struggling with opioid addiction, and the program has helped more than 36,600 residents receive treatment since 2019.
SUN Program Manager for Dignity Health’s Central Coast hospitals Amelia Grover said that care starts when patients are checked into a Dignity Health emergency room asking for help. Its three-fold process comes into play to find that person’s best route for treatment.
The patient is first examined by a “physician clinical champion,” who evaluates each person’s situation and plan of action from a medical perspective. A social worker then steps in to complete a clinical evaluation while a community health worker coordinates with appropriate agencies and develops specific follow-up plans for each patient and their needs.
“They’re sort of a team. They work in tandem together,” Grover said. “The substance use navigation program is really to target individuals who came into the hospital or the emergency department for an issue of substance use disorder. We evaluate any kind of treatment program or treatment that might be beneficial to the patient while they’re in our care, and then we navigate those individuals while they’re in the hospital, and post-acutely as appropriate.”
The SUN program also distributes Narcan kits at no charge for any community members and patients.
“We evaluate when that might be appropriate for patients who are in our care. If they want that, then we will include it as part of their care plan,” Grover said. “Even if people from the community come in and say, ‘Hey, we heard you were a naloxone distribution site’ and I have a box of naloxone, we will provide them with a box of naloxone. And we don’t necessarily request identifying information. They just need to come in and ask for it, and they can receive one.”
By providing this care and resource, Grover said the program aims to remove the stigma surrounding opioid addiction.
“We have received feedback from several individuals that they feel safe to come to any one of the Dignity Health hospitals and address these issues,” she said. “That’s a huge part of the barrier to getting treatment and care is, you know, the judgment and the shame that surrounds the disorder, … and so the first step is just making people feel safe.”
The day-to-day of a navigator varies, Grover said, and that’s because not all substance-using patients check into an emergency room for substance use. That’s why the program also created a patient navigator whose sole purpose is to identify patients who may need help and refer them to a social worker.
“[Patients have] complicated health presentations, they’ve got mental health needs, sometimes lots of social determinants of health—kind of like a rubber band ball, right? Like everything kind of layers on top of each other,” Grover said.
And while the program focuses on substance use, it also helps to meet patients where they are with what they are most concerned about, even if it’s not initially substance related.
“If the individual comes in and they have got some social determinants of health, like unstable housing, or they’re recently homeless, their substance use is really what is not going to be their primary focus right then,” she said. “And it may be that, over time, as they get linked and connected, then they’re able to assess their substance disorder.”
Through its work, SUN has seen successful results in its patients.
“We’ve had a couple of really great successes, where we’ve had people who’ve been in the ICU multiple times due to their substance use, but then finally got connected to treatment. They were ready to get connected to residential treatment, and they were able to then stay healthy and well,” Grover said.
To learn more about the SUN program visit dignityhealth.org.
Highlight
• Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley recently received a $4,000 grant through AgWest Farm Credit’s Community Grant program. The nonprofit will use the funds for renovations to laundry and shower facilities at its Transitional Aged Youth Navigation Center, which offers housing navigation, case management, mental health support, and more to youth ages 18 to 24 who need help transitioning to stable housing. For more information, visit fbsmv.com.
Reach New Times Staff Writer Libbey Hanson, from the Sun’s sister paper, at lhanson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 9-19, 2025.