Amid a national opioid epidemic, the Cambria County Drug Coalition and Conemaugh Health System hosted their first Addiction Crisis Summit on Wednesday.

The summit was held at the Living-Learning Center at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown campus.

The summit provided free training for health care providers on drug abuse statistics, the hospital’s new warm hand-off program, and non-opioid treatments for pain.

“Understanding what it means to utilize a prescription drug monitoring program and understanding alternative pain management systems to curtail the epidemic,” said Ronna Yablonski, the executive director of the drug coalition.

Dr. Steve Guiran is the Conemaugh Health System pain physician. He said over-prescribing opioids happens frequently, especially for chronic pain.

“I don’t want the pendulum to swing too far and us to end up under-treating patients’ pain, but there’s really no evidence for the use of high-dose opioids in chronic pain conditions,” said Dr. Guiran.

Doctors said one of the issues with statewide prescription drug prescribing guidelines, is that they are only guidelines, not laws. That can open the door to variations between practices and potential drug abuse.

“For opioid therapy, it’s appropriate to say we have a little bit of a ceiling dose, because it just increases side effects and risk for dependence,” said Dr. Guirand.

Instead, Conemaugh Health System employees are looking at other chronic pain treatments, like muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant and topical medications. Dr. Guirand also recommended physical and occupational therapy.

Drug coalition members said these new steps and training are necessary to prevent drug abuse in the community. 

“Sometimes in this line of work, we may feel there is no hope, but the coalition’s message is that there is hope, by working together collectively. We need to save as many lives as we can,” Yablonski said.

The summit was paid for through a Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grant.

Coalition members said they want to plan another summit in the spring to keep health care professionals updated on the drug epidemic and latest treatment and recovery options.