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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]