Dayton-area hospital association continues work to add more detox beds in community

The end of a calendar year can be a busy time for any business or organization. And the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association is no exception, as its CEO Bryan Bucklew leaves this week for a similar post in California.

The GDAHA board will now take the rest of the calendar year to assess the organization, and needs of its nearly 30 member hospitals, said board chair Deborah Feldman, president and CEO at Dayton Children's Hospital.

"An executive committee at GDAHA is exploring, a deep dive on current initiatives," Feldman said.

The interim leadership of GDAHA and Ascend Innovations — Sarah Hackenbracht for GDAHA and Marty Larson for Ascend, a medical technology company, — are in place to allow the board time to review initiatives, Feldman said. Once that's completed, a "local and regional" recruitment search will be underway for permanent replacements.

"The work of the association continues with business as usual; collaborating with hospitals and health systems, the public sector and regional business community," Hackenbracht said.

GDAHA will continue to focus on issues impacting the region's health care and hospital systems, as well as behavioral health and its work toward opening a crisis stabilization center, Feldman said.

Among funding sources, GDAHA did secure $800,000 through the state's Capital Budget for a new Dayton Regional Crisis Stabilization Unit & Detox Center, but an updated timeline on possible construction of the center was not immediately available. The initiative will bring an additional 16 to 32 detox beds to the region.

"To connect people to the right care at the right time at the right facility," Hackenbracht said, to ensure successful detox and transition to rehabilitation.

From Jan. 1 to mid-October of this year, there have been 213 drug overdose deaths, according to preliminary data from the county. The total for all of 2017 was 566 accidental drug overdose deaths.

There have been more than 1,000 downloads of the county's new mobile app, Get Help Now. Hackenbracht said the hospital association and county are continuing to update the app to include a list of resources available in other counties.

Another priority area of the association is the advance care planning initiative, called Decide to be Heard, between GDAHA, Wright State University, University of Dayton, Premier Health, Kettering Health Network and Ohio's Hospice to educate the community on end-of-life planning and health care power of attorney designations.

"We’ve established 16 implementation sites that are supported by 59 trained facilitators," Hackenbracht said. "We will be adding new sites and facilitators this fall. As we continue to build the capacity needed to make advance care planning conversations available in the Dayton region, we’ll expand the membership and representation on our Leadership Council, provide ongoing implementation support services, and increase the frequency of training offered in 2019."