Memorial Health collects 178 lbs of Medication during annual "Crush the Crisis" Prescription Drug Take Back Day

Memorial Health announced today that it collected 178 pounds of medication during HCA Healthcare’s seventh annual “Crush the Crisis” prescription drug take back day. To date, Memorial Health has collected more than 1,280 pounds of unused and expired medications as part of HCA Healthcare’s “Crush the Crisis” initiative. ‘In total, HCA Healthcare has now collected more than 108,500 pounds of medication since launching “Crush the Crisis” across the country in 2019.

Memorial Health partnered with our Chatham County Sheriff’s Department and the YMCA of Coastal Georgia – West Chatham Branch to help community members safely and anonymously dispose of unused or expired medication while bringing awareness to the dangers of prescription drug misuse. The event was held in alignment with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, which collected 571,054 pounds of medication.

As part of HCA Healthcare, which draws on data from its approximately 44 million annual patient encounters, Memorial Health uses the science of “big data” to help reduce prescription drug misuse and transform pain management, with initiatives in surgical, emergency and other care settings, including:

• Enhanced Surgical Recovery (ESR): a multi-modal approach to pain management using pre-, intra- and post-operative interventions to optimize outcomes. HCA Healthcare’s ESR programs have demonstrated significant improvements in surgical recovery and patient satisfaction, including decreases in opioid usage.
• Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances (EPCS): aims to stem increasing rates of opioid-related addiction, misuse, diversion and death by making it more difficult for medication-seekers to doctor-shop and alter prescriptions. Physicians have access to aggregated electronic health records, providing data that will allow them to prescribe opioids judiciously.