Opioid Use Disorder Expert Insights

As the country continues to endure the COVID-19 pandemic, the news media has focused on the economic impact including unemployment statistics and food lines in many cities throughout the US. However, one major issue that has not been included in the news media is the worsening of the opioid…

Merissa Andersen, PharmD, MPH, 2020-2021 International Medication Safety Management Fellow A recent error reported to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices National Medication Errors Reporting Program (ISMP MERP) details the story of an 88-year-old long term care (LTC) resident who was…

By Julie Gould According to recent research presented at ASHP Midyear 2020, regional and state stakeholders and policy makers should utilize prescription monitoring programs to better address rural overdoses and increase the availability of Naloxone.    To better understand the background of the…

By Julie Gould Jessica DeMartino, PhD, Manager, Health Outcomes Insights and Solutions, Vaccines US Health Outcomes, GSK, reviews her recent research that examined opioid use and painkiller treatment patterns among patients with shingles, and explains the significance of the findings that showed…

By Julie Gould   Walgreens has recently announced two new solutions aimed at supporting patients with chronic and acute pain. In this interview, Darem Dughri, senior director of pharmacy operations, and Tyler Liebegott, PharmD, pharmacy manager, both at Walgreens, discuss the solutions for this…

By Julie Gould  In a recent research letter published online in JAMA Network Open, a team of researchers observed rates of naloxone availability in rural Georgia pharmacies. “This cross-sectional study evaluated the availability of naloxone, pharmacists’ awareness of the standing order, and the…

Marco Tori, MD, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, discusses why alcohol and benzodiazepine co-involvement was common among opioid overdose-related deaths.    Reference: Tori ME, Larochelle MR, Naimi TS. Alcohol or Benzodiazepine Co-involvement With Opioid…

By Julie Gould  David Smith, project executive for the Medicaid Transformation Project at Avia, discusses how the opioid epidemic has evolved and how the Medicaid Transformation Project helps transform health care and the related social needs for vulnerable populations. Please introduce yourself…

To what extent is a pharmacy liable for harm that a patient causes to others while the patient is using medication provided by the pharmacy? In other words, can a pharmacy owe a duty of care to a third party based on the pharmacy’s relationship with the patient? This is the question that arose…

By Julie Gould William Fleischman, MD, MHS, director of Quality and Implementation Science at the Hackensack Meridian Health System, explains how a restrictive drug distribution program reduced the rate of TIRF prescribing and he identifies the critical role pharmacists play in patient safety.…