CINCINNATI, Ohio– US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams visited the Mercy Heath Anderson Hospital for a roundtable discussion to brainstorm solutions to help combat the opioid epidemic in Ohio. 

Congressman Brad Wenstrup joined Dr. Adams, and more than a dozen behavioral health and addiction experts in hopes to come up with viable solutions to implement in Southwest Ohio. 

The Surgeon General said Ohio had made great strides over the past few years, but there is still a long way to go. 

"You all are literally leading the country in terms of responding to opioid overdoses," Adams said. "You have a rate of decline in opioid overdoses that surpasses the rest of the country and quite frankly leading the rest of the country." 

Despite the increased efforts, Adams said Ohio and the Nation are still in crisis mode. 

"Better does not mean good," he said. "And unfortunately we were in such bad shape as a country, and as a state here in Ohio that significantly better still means we're significantly far away from where we need to be." 

A big boost in the continued efforts will come by way of the $140 million grant from the Department of Health, and Human Services announced on Sept. 5.

Adams said those funds would help get treatment to people who desperately need it, adding that even more funds will be coming to aide Ohio. 

"There was an additional $22 million that was announced that would be coming to Ohio to help with surveillance," Adams said. "Because we know that it's important that we do a better job of measuring why people are dying, and what substances they're dying from so we know where to apply those resources." 

The Surgeon General wanted to make one thing very clear; the Nation is headed in the right direction. 

"We're doing the right things," he said. "We're getting Naloxone out there, we're providing people with warm handoffs to care, and we're setting up meaningful recovery for folks. And so we need to keep doing those things. We need to recognize the progress that's been made, but we also need to recognize we still got a long way to go. The funding from the administration, the support from the federal government, will continue to empower that recovery on a local level.