States Step Up IT Efforts in Battle Against Opioid Epidemic (State Tech Magazine)

Friday Jun 23rd, 2017

The opioid epidemic is on the rise. Government data published June 20, which surveyed opioid-related hospital visits between 2005 and 2014, revealed a 64 percent uptick in inpatient care and a doubling of opioid-related emergency room visits.

Of the 30 states involved in the study, Maryland topped the list as the hardest hit by the epidemic. A state report released in June found that opioid-related deaths had nearly quadrupled since 2010.

“We see overdoses in all ethnic groups, in all Zip codes,” Leana Wen, Baltimore City’s health commissioner, told the Washington Post. The city is one of the hardest hit by the issue, seeing nearly two deaths a day from drug- and alcohol-related overdoses in 2016.

Read the entire article. 

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When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

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