Fear and Loathing in Pill Mill Country
By Jonathan Springston, Associate Managing Editor, AHC Media
After years of relative stability, opioid painkiller overdoses in the United States jumped to an all-time high in 2014, according to CDC data released in December.
In the month since this revelation came to light, researchers, policy makers, and academics far and wide have weighed in. NPR examined prescription drug abuse in the workplace and the strain such addictions place on state workers’ compensation funds. After releasing a report detailing Indiana employers’ policies, procedures, and attitudes around prescription drugs, the National Safety Council called for widespread, immediate action to curb what the organization called “the deadliest drug crisis in U.S. history.”
"Prescription opioids have been a flashing red light for years, but as a society we have not heeded the data warning us of the deadly cost of addiction," said Deborah A.P. Hersman, president and CEO of the National Safety Council, in a statement. "Our grace period is over. If we do not act quickly and deliberately, we will lose more people to preventable overdoses. Nothing is more tragic than that."
While many recognize the reality of the problem, the debate continues over what exactly to do about it. The February issue of ED Management notes that a number of organizations are calling for systematic changes to curb the prescription of opioids while also making it easier for patients with addiction problems to access evidence-based treatment. The cover story digs deep into the CDC’s proposed draft guidelines for providers, which has surprisingly generated some controversy, as well as research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which released a report detailing 37 specific reforms, and the consideration of alternative therapies.
Here’s a sneak peek from the issue:
“Drug overdose deaths in the United States outnumber deaths from firearms and motor vehicle crashes. Gunshot deaths, vehicle crashes, and opioid overdoses are all preventable injuries, but only one — the prescription opioid problem — originates in the healthcare system,” noted Michael Botticelli, MEd, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, at a forum to discuss the [Johns Hopkins] report on Nov. 17, 2015. “We know the opioid crisis is far from over. We also know that the public health consequences of this crisis stretch beyond overdoses and include new cases of substance use disorders requiring treatment, babies born exposed to opioids and requiring treatment for withdrawal in the neonatal intensive care unit, and outbreaks of injection-related infections, including HIV and hepatitis C.”
Shannon Frattaroli, PhD, MPH, the editor of the report and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, notes that in formulating the recommendations, the authors wanted to make sure that research findings were translated into actionable recommendations and policies.
“We agreed on three guiding principles to take us forward that included making sure that we respected and recognized the need for people who are in chronic pain to have safe access to these drugs,” she says. “We wanted to make sure that our efforts were comprehensive in nature so that we could take a full approach to the problem. We also wanted to make sure that we came away from this process with some real, actionable recommendations so that the science could inform how policymakers, community members, and stakeholders in this process could act to stem the tide.”
In conjunction with coverage in February ED Management, AHC Media on Feb. 9 will present a live webinar, “Safe Opioid Use: Meeting the CMS CoP Hospital Requirements” that will discuss the revised standards on safe opioid use. You won't want to miss it.
And later, the March issue of Primary Care Reports will build on the theme of the Feb. 9 webinar by discussing strategies for prescribing opioids safely.