Anne Arundel County Department of Health issued the following announcement on Feb. 4.
After Maryland broke into the top five states for opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017, Anne Arundel Health System physicians took a hard look at how painkillers are prescribed.
That review uncovered a key problem in the opioid crisis: doctors were prescribing more medication than patients needed or wanted because there were no agreed-upon standards across prescribers and departments. The hospital created universal guidelines to fix the inconsistency.
Now doctors and health professionals are saying those guidelines resulted in a 65% drop in the rate opioids are overprescribed compared to 2017.
The reduction occurred despite a 10% increase in the number of patients seen in hospital visits, emergency departments, surgeries and outpatient care since 2017.
Prescribers can be a part of the solution to the #Opioid Epidemic. To help, visit https://aaphysicians.org/opioid-epidemic-be-a-part-of-the-…/
Original source can be found here.
Source: Anne Arundel County Department of Health
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