Halting the Opioid Crisis with Alliance to HEAL

November 26, 2018

By Jamie Schloegel, Chief Executive Officer

La Crosse Community Foundation, Mayo Clinic Health System, Gundersen Health System, and La Crosse County Health Department have joined resources to move the needle on the opioid crisis. The four organizations have committed over $400,000 over the next three years to support the Alliance to HEAL (Halting the Effects of Addiction Locally), which launched in August of 2018. Alliance to HEAL has successfully brought together over 80 community members to work together across nine work groups to heal the broken continuum of care for local people with substance abuse disorders. Judges, mayors, hospital CEOs, legislators, and boots on the ground people working directly with those struggling with addiction are sharing their experience and problem solving together to improve our community response to the opioid crisis.

In October, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) came to La Crosse to work with Alliance to HEAL for a full day (pictured). Participants devised strategies around how we could respond as a community to the many areas related to opioids that need fixing. IHI is a worldwide leader in healthcare improvement and will come one final time in January to help each work group customize their plan to end the devastation caused by addiction and death from opioid use.

This initiative was borne out of an idea from the La Crosse Community Foundation Board of Directors. We are proud to lead the call to action in our community and are fortunate to have unrestricted resources to use to benefit those who need it most.