BEHIND THE SCENES

Investment in staff and curriculum promote more successful outcomes in changed lives FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

By the grace of God, Lifeline has literal volumes of success stories. You see them in each issue of this magazine and regularly on our social media pages. Those changed lives are the true faces of our mission.

Ashley Miller 2014 Graduate of Lifeline

However, to create those successful outcomes, our leadership, staff and volunteers continually work behind the scenes to improve our recovery program. Just in the last six months since our fall issue of this publication, we have made huge strides to improve the lives of our clients. Thanks to incredible financial and volunteer support from our community, Lifeline has recently made these advances:

• New electronic health records software, allowing us to make the major transition from paper copy records to more efficient electronic health records. This improvement saves staff time and promotes better health care. We have found that it improves all aspects of our patient-centered care, including safety, communication, education, timeliness, efficiency and equity.

• New evidence-based curriculum, with the goal of improved patient outcomes by using proven methods. Our clients can expect to receive the best available care. We use content that has been shown to be successful, meaning we have a program that we know works.

• Additional staff members to meet standards set by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Five additional staff at the women’s campus, and 10 additional at the men’s campus allowed us to shift schedules from 48-hour overnight shifts to 8-hour shifts. This means our staff can be home with their families every day, reducing their stress and improving their productivity. Also, the additional staff provides more time to help our clients reach their goals.

• The addition of professional staff, providing new clinical services to our clients. Credentials of our new full-time counselor, three part-time counselors and a part-time clinical director raise the standards of our recovery program. Our 70+ clients benefit from having family counseling to help heal not just our clients, but also their children and extended families.

These investments, totaling more than $500,000, were made possible by growing support from individuals and organizations who believe in our mission. If you’d like to know how you or your group can help Lifeline continue to grow to meet the needs of those fighting addiction, please contact me at amiller@lifelinerecoverycenter.org

Ashley Miller, Executive Director