Take Home Naloxone: Creating Access & Saving Lives: May 29

Samantha Alonis, MS
Deputy Director, Bureau of Prevention Services, Illinois Department of Human Services – Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery

Since March 2023, Alonis has overseen youth substance use prevention, tobacco compliance and overdose response programs. She has been a long-time advocate for systems change that could prevent health and social inequities. Alonis also serves as the National Prevention Network Coordinator for Illinois. Alonis has 16 years of cross-sector experience, including in social services, local government, higher education and healthcare. 

Alonis began her career as a social worker in a residential center for children who had experienced severe abuse and neglect, where she observed the need for systems and policies to do more to prevent adverse childhood experiences and break cycles of intergenerational trauma. This motivated Alonis to pursue a Master of Science in Leadership and Public Policy, so she could apply a trauma-informed and racial equity lens to public policies and transform systems to advance health equity for young people. Alonis previously led efforts to advance workplace inclusivity, trauma-informed care and language accessibility in a healthcare system.

Hannah Klamm, MSN, RNC-OB, C-EFM
Obstetrics Outreach Educator, Northwest Illinois Perinatal Center

Klamm has 15 years of nursing experience, specializing in labor and delivery. She is an obstetrics (OB) outreach educator with the Northwest Illinois Administrative Perinatal Center in Rockford. Klamm previously worked as a nurse manager of a Level 3 obstetrics unit in the Chicago suburbs. She is a member of the Illinois Department of Public Health’s State Quality Committee, a subcommittee of the Perinatal Advisory Committee. She also is on the committee for the Illinois Chapter of The Naloxone Project. She is passionate about perinatal mental health, trauma-informed care, harm reduction and reducing stigma in the OB hospital setting. 

Don Stader, MD FACEP, FASAM
Medical Director, Compass Opioid Stewardship Program; Founder and Chair, Colorado Naloxone Project

Dr. Stader is an opioid expert, film producer and social entrepreneur. He practices emergency and addiction medicine at Lincoln Health in rural Colorado. He is medical director of the Compass Opioid Stewardship Program, a nationwide initiative to improve pain control, prescribing habits, addiction treatment and opioid stewardship for primary care clinicians. Dr. Stader is also the founder and executive director of The Naloxone Project, a national effort to engage hospitals and clinicians in opioid overdose risk recognition, education and naloxone dispensing.

Dr. Stader is a recognized physician leader and past president of the Colorado chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians (COACEP), past section chair at Swedish Medical Center and former president of the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association. He is the founder and past chair of COACEP’s Opioid Task Force, editor-in-chief of COACEP’s 2017 Opioid Prescribing & Treatment Guidelines, and the Colorado chapter’s Clinicians United to Resolve the Epidemic (CURE) guidelines on pain control and opioid stewardship. Dr. Stader served for over two years as the senior pain management and opioid policy physician adviser for the Colorado Hospital Association. He serves on multiple national and local committees addressing the opioid epidemic in Colorado and across the nation. He is the current chair of ACEP’s Pain & Addiction Management Section.

Dr. Stader is the founder and president of Stader Opioid Consulting LLC, which provides education, policy and quality improvement on opioids and alternatives to opioids to hospitals, government organizations, and physician groups. He is a well-known national lecturer on the opioid epidemic, multimodal pain control, opioid stewardship, treatment of chronic and acute pain, opioid use disorders, medication for addiction treatment, and harm reduction.

Autumn Mels, DNP, MSN-Ed, RNC-OB, C-EFM, CNE
OB Outreach Educator, IDPH Administrative Perinatal Center, The University of Chicago

Mels is a doctorally prepared registered nurse with inpatient high-risk obstetrical experience and undergraduate nursing instructor experience. She currently serves as the OB Outreach Educator for the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Administrative Perinatal Center at The University of Chicago. Mels joined The Naloxone Project last fall and has since facilitated a webinar with another OB educator in the state addressing the need for take-home naloxone utilizing the Drug Overdose Prevention Program (DOPP). Over 100 people attended this webinar, which Mels and her colleague have presented at multiple quality meetings, helping individual hospitals begin adoption of take-home naloxone through DOPP, developed an FAQ document addressing most common questions, and will present a poster on project data at the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses National Conference in June.