Substance use is a significant public health issue in rural communities. The opioid epidemic in particular continues to have a devastating impact in rural areas disproportionately affected by a lack of infrastructure to provide treatment for substance and opioid use disorders.
Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), often the hubs of local systems of care, can play an important role in addressing substance use disorders. This webinar, featuring Flex Monitoring Team (FMT) member John Gale, makes the case for why CAHs should address substance use, provides a framework to support CAHs in doing so, and describes examples of substance use activities undertaken by CAHs to substantiate the framework.