During a ceremony held October 30 at the Muhammad Ali Center, the institute was lauded for its , an innovative, evidence-based approach to health care grounded in the concepts of social determinants of health and integrated care coordination.

The program is based on the institute’s , which links clinical and behavioral health care plans with a community care plan. Patients in the program receive detailed assessments, weekly and monthly monitoring, interdisciplinary health care consultation and care planning, coordination of care, community resource planning and support, as well as behavioral and mental health support.

In addition to improving health outcomes, the Flourish model hopes to reduce health care costs by leveraging new rules through Medicare Advantage that will pay for non-skilled in-home service providers beginning in 2019.

The institute was one of . UofL School of Public Health and Information Sciences faculty member, Sarah Moyer, MD, also was honored for her work as a co-chair of the Louisville Health Advisory Board. She is director of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness.

To help tackle the issue of opioid misuse in older adults, the at the University of Louisville has been working with individuals in rural Kentucky who are involved in the institute’s , which is designed to deliver interdisciplinary care coordination to those with chronic conditions.

Of the 154 patients who have received services, medication management issues related to opioid prescriptions and interactions with other medications were a factor with more than 90 patients. Medication safety also proved to be a problem, with family members or caregivers taking opioids from patients in at least 10 percent of cases.

The institute recently received supplemental federal funding to their Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program grant, specifically to expand work in Bullitt, Henry, Oldham, Shelby, Spencer and Trimble counties related to opioids and older adults. This effort also will be offered in Jefferson, Barren, Metcalf and Hart counties.

“This additional funding will allow us to dramatically increase our ability to screen for potential opioid misuse and to educate patients, students and practitioners on best practices for pain management for older adults,” said Anna Faul, PhD, the institute’s executive director.

Joe D’Ambrosio, PhD, the institute’s director of health innovation & sustainability and assistant professor at the UofL School of Medicine, will lead an interdisciplinary clinical team of faculty from nursing, social work and counseling psychology to serve as mental health clinicians for the project.

He said the institute is developing a new program to train students and clinicians on how to identify and treat opioid-related substance abuse among older adults. The programming also will be offered to community mental health partners including , the region’s largest mental health care provider.