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Gray addiction clinic about 40 percent complete, August opening expected

Johnson City Press - 6/14/2017

The history of opioid addiction in Northeast Tennessee will forever be changed in just a couple of months.

An addiction treatment clinic prescribing methadone will open in Gray sometime in August, according to a Mountain States Health Alliance official in charge of the project.

Methadone is a medication used to treat opioid addiction, typically in conjunction with "wrap-around services," like in-depth counseling.

Methadone can also be highly abused and is one of the most common drugs involved in prescription opioid overdose deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The clinic, announced last May and likely to be called Overmountain Recovery, is a joint venture of Mountain States Health Alliance and East Tennessee State University. Along with the medication-assisted treatment, the clinic, will offer counseling services and a research component.

"We're now about three weeks into the construction on site," said Lindy White, head of the clinic's development. "Things are going extremely well and it's on track."

White, who also serves as CEO of Woodridge Hospital, said the building's conversion is between 40 and 45 percent completed as construction crews are dilligently working to renovate the clinic's interior.

"We basically just had to move some walls and do some minor updates just for enhanced patient flow, so we're efficient and for adequate space on the therapy side," White said. "Those renovations are slated to be completed towards the last or next-to-last week of July."

Outside the facility, workers have started prepping land behind the facility for more parking. Johnson City's zoning code requires that non-residential substance abuse treatment facilities have one off-street parking space per 100 square feet of gross floor area, plus one space per employee.

"We've still got several more weeks of those renovations, but it's certainly moving along, as well as the site work," White said.

Because the facility's previous use was medical-related, the interior space and layout has made the transformation fairly conducive, White said.

"The space (inside the building) really is one of the reasons why we were excited about the location," White said.

Meanwhile, the team that will operate the addiction clinic's day-to-day workflow is still being formed.

Because an offer has already been made to a candidate, White said the clinic may have a program director by the end of this week. The program director's full-time responsibility will be overseeing the clinic.

Once the program director is hired, White said the focus will turn to an on-site medical director, which she hopes to have hired by the end of June.

"We certainly wanted to have the program director in place because we know a lot of good medical directors want to know who they're going to be working with," White said.

"I've talked to four interested candidates to this point, but we have not solidified who the full-time medical director is going to be."

The next four to six weeks will revolve around creating the clinic's exact policy, procedures and signage, the executive said.

For Gray residents still concerned about the clinic, eight to 10 community members will be invited to serve on an advisory board that will provide the clinic's leadership with feedback and suggestions.

White said the advising committee will be comprised of a "cross-section" of the community, including members of local faith-based organizations, employers and schools.

"I will say there has been strong interest. Obviously, I know there are tense feelings in the community, and we're going to do our very best to ensure we put those concerns at rest as the clinic becomes operational," she said.

By mid-July, officials hope to establish an informational hotline, as well as allocate someone on-site to take questions from potential patient enrollees.

"We're hopeful we'll have someone on-site (by mid-July). We'll have an access number to be able to start to assist our patients in navigating the next steps and certainly (create) a sort of wait list," White said.

Email Zach Vance at zvance@johnsoncitypress.com. Follow Zach Vance on Twitter at @ZachVanceJCP. Like him on Facebook at Facebook.com/ZachVanceJCP.