Utilizing Peers in Hospital SettingsUtilizing Peers in Hospital Settings
Rural Roads- The RCORPodcast.
Hospital leaders and peer workers share how lived experience in rural emergency departments has reduced hold times and opened new pathways to care. A statewide recovery hub director adds a broader look at training, stigma reduction and the growth of peer roles across clinical and community settings.
43:42•28 Apr 2026
How Peer Workers Are Changing Rural Emergency Rooms
Episode Overview
- Peer workers with lived experience in the ER helped cut behavioural health hold hours from around 150 to as low as 10–20 per day.
- Keeping peers as independent contractors through a peer-run organisation reduced conflict and protected their distinct role and policies.
- Simple scripts like asking if someone wants to talk with a person who has lived experience often opened the door to treatment.
- Robust community partnerships with mental health agencies, law enforcement and legislators were vital to staff buy‑in and programme success.
- Statewide recovery hubs now train and support peers across hospitals, jails and community settings, focusing on helping people become self‑sufficient.
“"You were there for me when no one else knew how to be."”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction? This episode of Rural Roads brings together hospital leaders, peer workers, and a statewide trainer to show how peers are changing care in rural emergency departments. Host Tim Rabolt chats first with nursing director Sean Hopler and peer specialist Lindsay Westbrook from Summit Healthcare in Arizona. Sean admits he initially pushed back hard on the idea of bringing "recovering addicts" into the ER, worried about staff reactions and risk.
Yet once peers arrived, the numbers spoke loudly: behavioural health hold time dropped from about 150 hours a day to as low as 10–20 hours, and people started reaching actual treatment instead of sitting in a noisy ER for days. Lindsay shares what it was like to walk into that sceptical environment as one of the first two peers, backed by a separate peer-run organisation, Hope Inc.
She recalls a member telling her, "you were there for me when no one else knew how to be," and stories of people who once overdosed repeatedly now turning up only for physical health needs—or proudly sharing that they had a baby while substance‑free. You’ll also hear how keeping peers as independent vendors, rather than hospital staff, helped protect their role and reduce friction.
In part two, recovery hub director and certified recovery specialist Mike Krafik brings the bigger picture from across 22 Pennsylvania counties. A multiple‑overdose survivor himself, he talks about early gaps in care, long waits for treatment, and how peer roles now sit in hospitals, jails and child welfare systems. His focus is simple: peers help people "not need us anymore" by building self‑sufficiency, human connection, and real hope at the bedside.
If you work in a rural hospital, support RCORP projects, or care about making overdose care more humane and effective, this conversation might spark ideas for your own team. How could peers shift the culture in your setting?
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