Health center fights substance abuse with improved standards

SUPERIOR – Mineral Regional Health Center recently updated their policies to ensure a consistent protocol when dealing with controlled substances.

Cindy Stergar, interim chief executive officer for MRHC, said this brought the health center in line with the standards of care. These are rules, policies, procedures and methods of administering care followed by organizations nationwide as a way to ensure everyone follows the same rules.

“All we’re doing is putting in a consistent protocol in how we practice,” said Stergar.

To continue the fight against substance abuse trends, Stergar said the standards tracked the sale of controlled substances and monitored how often a given provider ordered something. This would raise a red flag if one provider had requested a given substance an unusual number of times.

“They’re always watching pharmacies, what’s ordered from pharmacies and what providers are ordering,” said Stergar. “We’re trying to make sure our providers are in compliance with that.”

These standards are especially prevalent with controlled substances where amounts of a drug or treatment should be administered for specific needs. Stergar said these standards have not been especially present in the area for a couple years. Morphine equivalency was one of the big reasons for the switch.

This policy would start the use of morphine equivalency at MRHC. The health center now uses a chart to compare medications to doses of morphine. MRHC was given a limit of 120 equivalency. If a controlled substance is listed as greater than 120 milligrams of morphine, it is beyond the health center’s scope of care.

Stergar said a patient could still visit MRHC, but they would need to see someone else for those treatments.

“It’s just like diabetes,” said Stergar. “When you treat diabetes, there are standards of care with [it]. There’s also standards of care with chronic pain.”

MRHC wants to raise awareness of the standards of care. To this end, the health center sent out a letter to their patients in the community to inform them of the clinic’s adoption of the standards. Patients will also be asked to sign a contract, to show they know about the new policy and understand what is involved in it.

There have also been concerns about access to the substances and the potential for their abuse. Mineral County Sheriff Ernie Ornelas said there have been cases where people will rob a house specifically to get their hands on controlled substances.

“It becomes a law enforcement issue when we have people who are selling [controlled substances] into the community,” said Ornelas. “We’re really afraid of that access getting to young people.”

While there have been few cases recently, some of the more common instances were break-ins specifically to raid a medicine cabinet. There have also been times where a family member or friend steals a person’s medications.

Some people have also purchased the substances from health care providers for the purpose of selling them. Many of the policies about how to access controlled substances have been put in place in an effort to combat this.

MRHC wants people to know they plan to provide care for their patients first. They also wanted a better way to track how certain substances were ordered and distributed. These changes are expected to improve patient care and help eliminate substance abuse.

MRHC also wanted to remind the community they act as a primary care clinic and are not a specialty clinic.

Stergar said some needs were beyond the health center’s ability to work with because of the nature of the problem. These patients would need to find care somewhere other than MRHC.