2024 Business Women Awards
INDUSTRY LEADER | SOCIAL SERVICES: Linda E. Hurley
CODAC Behavioral Healthcare CEO and president
HELPING OTHERS RECOVER from addiction is a complex labyrinth. It is equal parts medically treating the disease and showing compassion for those seeking a way out of that darkness.
It is a fine line that Linda E. Hurley has toed in the 33 years she has been with CODAC Behavioral Healthcare, the last six as the Cranston-based addiction treatment center’s CEO and president. And while Rhode Island is still mired in a major opioid and substance use disorder crisis, Hurley and her staff at CODAC have made various strides getting the state and its residents on the right path toward recovery.
CODAC has been showing people the way out of addiction since it was founded in 1971. Rhode Island’s oldest and largest provider of outpatient services for opioid use disorder, various other substance use disorders and concurrent behavioral health challenges has nine locations across the state.
With a specialized focus on opioid use disorder, CODAC is committed to lowering the overdose death rate in Rhode Island, which is the 11th-highest per capita of any U.S. state. Hurley says that substance use disorder is a very pervasive disease that creeps up on people.
“Once the brain is changed [or hijacked by drugs], all bets are off,” she said. “You have no control.”
However, as soon as individuals receive treatment, she says, they feel good enough to start to rebuild their lives.
Under Hurley’s leadership, CODAC has achieved numerous industry firsts and rolled out innovative medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, programs for substance use disorder that have become national models. MAT is about giving the correct dose of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-certified drug, such as methadone, to avoid withdrawal from opioids because it takes care of the physical dependence that makes people sick, Hurley said.
But it does not create a euphoria or “get someone high,” Hurley said. Beyond medication, an MAT program includes counseling, medical and psychiatric services, as well as assisting patients in navigating the bureaucracy of reaching entitlements and connecting in their communities.
Both the mobile medical unit and MAT program for opioid use disorder inside local prisons are national models.
MAT is a game changer that first caught Hurley’s attention early in her career when she took an internship with CODAC in 1988 counseling patients. Within two months, she fell in love with the modality.
“I saw the most remarkable change,” Hurley said. “People getting healthier, reuniting with their families. Really getting the assistance they needed to move into recovery, however they defined it. That remains what I love most about the work.”
Under Hurley’s tenure, CODAC has also set standards in addressing the addiction crisis. Among them are a women’s program in Newport to treat pregnant women and mothers with opioid addiction; tobacco addiction treatment services; a mobile unit to meet patients where they are at in urban core, rural communities and homeless situations; and medication-assisted treatment inside Rhode Island’s federal and state prisons that continues after an individual is released.
Additionally, CODAC collaborated with a state agency to develop the current opioid treatment plan health home model. Subsequently, CODAC became the first agency in the U.S. to receive national accreditation and certification by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
A third program, slated to open in May and destined to become a national model is CODAC’s fully integrated health care center. Located at 45 Royal Little Drive in Providence, it’s the first of its kind in the nation. The 22,000-square-foot facility will offer treatment for substance use disorders and a host of services, such as primary care, mental health and psychiatric services, dental care and a tobacco cessation program, all open to the community under one roof.
“Having been a counselor herself, she understands what both the clinicians and patients are facing,” said John Houle, president of JH Communications, of Hurley. “She brings a compassionate outlook, along with an incredible vision for CODAC’s leadership role in developing a truly integrated approach to opioid and addiction treatment.”
