CEDARVILLE — Cedarville University’s School of Pharmacy was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Cardinal Health Foundation’s Generation Rx Best Practices in Pain Medication Use grant program.

The grant will be used to continue to combat the opioid crisis in Dayton through a chronic pain management program with enhanced communication.

Specifically, Cedarville’s School of Pharmacy will work in collaboration with the Rocking Horse Center in Springfield to help patients make good medical decisions relating to pain management. The Dayton region, including Springfield, is widely known for being one of the worst areas in the nation for opioid abuse.

“This grant will support our efforts to help people make better decisions with their pain management, and hopefully, through this grant, lives can be restored,” said Aleda Chen, Pharm.D., Ph.D, associate professor of pharmacy practice at Cedarville University. “We are pleased to partner with Cardinal Health on providing solutions to the opioid crisis that has gripped our nation.”

Cedarville University was one of 15 healthcare organizations across Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia to receive the Best Practices in Pain Medication Use grant. Cedarville is the only college or university in the Dayton region to be awarded a grant by Cardinal Health to combat the opioid crisis.

As part of Cardinal Health’s Opioid Action Program, the Best Practices in Pain Medication Use grants are designed to support healthcare organizations work with their prescribers to reduce opioid prescriptions, find alternatives to opioid medication for pain management, and better engage their patients — with the ultimate goal of better patient outcomes. Organizations receiving this grant will also come together regularly in a learning collaborative guided by pain management specialists from the Geisinger Health Clinic, to share their progress, lessons learned and best practices as they fight the opioid epidemic.

“All of the organizations selected for funding share our goal of turning the tide on the opioid epidemic,” said Jessie Cannon, vice-president of community relations at Cardinal Health. “Ultimately, we expect our grantees to learn from each other — and we will learn from them. As they develop best practices, our goal is to spread this work throughout the country, and foster solutions to this complex public health crisis.”