FIELD NOTES
The opioid epidemic and deaths from drug overdoses permeate daily news reports—and our daily lives, affecting patients, colleagues, acquaintances, or loved ones. In keeping with CO*RE’s educational mission, this page highlights a series of current topics from 2018.
Get Ready! New FDA REMS and SUPPORT Act Address Opioid Crisis
Two powerful tools to help us all combat the growing Opioid Crisis: the FDA’s new Opioid Analgesic Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) and Congress’s SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act. FDA REMS In September, the FDA approved a new Opioid Analgesic Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) that [...]
FDA Expands REMS Training to Include More Opioids, More Health Care Providers
In September, the FDA approved a new Opioid Analgesic Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) that expands upon the previous (2012) ER/LA Opioid REMS. The new REMS requires training also be made available on immediate-release opioid analgesics and offered to prescribers and nonprescribers alike who are involved in the [...]
Data Trends: Opioid Prescribing, Overdose Deaths, and More
A 2017 CDC Surveillance Report on Drug-Related Risks and Outcomes highlights some progress but much work yet to be done in curbing the opioid epidemic. According to the report, there has been a leveling off and declines in opioid prescribing rates since 2012 and high-dose prescribing rates since 2009. [...]
Opioid Prescription Limits: Pharmacies, States, and Medicare
A growing list of entities—including private, state, and federal—are introducing prescription limit approaches as one tactic to combat the opioid epidemic. According to a press release on May 7, 2018, Walmart (and its membership-only warehouse Sam’s Club) pharmacies will soon “restrict initial acute opioid prescriptions to no more than [...]
Surgeon General Advises More People To “Be prepared. Get naloxone. Save a life.”
On April 5, 2018, the U.S. Surgeon General issued the first public health advisory in 13 years. In short, he urges Americans to “Be prepared. Get naloxone. Save a life.” Naloxone is a potentially lifesaving medication that can temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. It is increasingly [...]
Surge in Opioid Overdose Emergency Department Visits
A recent CDC report examining emergency department data from July-September 2016 vs July-September 2017 shows a 30% increase in opioid overdose visits in the U.S. Such data can identify trends much sooner than waiting for data from death certificates. A closer analysis of 16 states that received funding to [...]
States Go Their Own Way With Opioid Laws
Federally, there are opioid policy declarations, funding allocations, commissions, and task forces. But states have purview over critical pieces of opioid policy impacting clinicians’ daily practice too. CO*RE maintains a State Information Hub providing speakers and learners attending live CO*RE activities with current individual state information on the following [...]
U.S. Life Expectancy Declining: Do Opioid Overdose Deaths Play a Role?
Despite having some of the world’s highest spending on medical care, a CDC report released in December showed that the U.S. experienced a decline in life expectancy for the second year in a row in 2016. The last time life expectancy dipped for one year was in 1993, during the [...]
New FDA Report Examines CO*RE Experience and Feasibility of Other CE/CME for REMS
In November 2017, the FDA released a report with analysis and recommendations for the use of continuing education (CE/CME) for Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). But what is a REMS? And how is healthcare provider CE/CME related to it? This new FDA Feasibility Report addresses these questions. A Risk [...]
Three Justice Department Actions to Address the Opioid Crisis
On November 29, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced three new initiatives from the Department of Justice to address the opioid crisis.First is the news of $12.2 million in federal grant funding for state and local law enforcement partners to combat illegal manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine, heroin, and prescription opioids. [...]