Naloxone for Risk Management in Primary Care, Pharmacy, Families, and Beyond

Substance use disorder (SUD) is the nation’s largest preventable disease. Unfortunately, only about 10% of patients ever receive treatment. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, there are about 20 million people struggling with addiction and only 4,400 certified specialists. Naloxone is a life-saving medication that can reverse the effects of opioid overdose. This session will address how to expand access to naloxone for risk management in healthcare settings and in less traditional arenas, such as families.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presentation will discuss how to increase naloxone prescribing and encourage collaboration between general practice clinicians and addiction medicine specialists. CDC data shows that only one naloxone prescription is dispensed for every 70 high-dose opioid prescriptions, even though the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain recommends prescribing naloxone to patients when risk factors for opioid overdose are present, including SUDs. Greater dispensing of naloxone can save lives and increase opportunities to provide patients with SUDs with treatment. Presenters will discuss how CDC’s naloxone resources and addiction medicine toolkit can support clinicians to increase naloxone prescriptions and learn how collaboration with specialists can lead to better treatment for patients with SUDs. General practice clinicians are key in promoting patient safety. This includes treatment for SUDs, care coordination with addiction medicine specialists, and prescribing naloxone. To support clinicians, CDC developed tools on addiction medicine and naloxone including conversation starters, mini modules, and interactive patient cases scenarios to support the continuum of care. Additionally, recognizing that stigma can be an obstacle to treatment, the patient cases help clinicians practice effective communication skills with patients. Designed to educate and support patient treatment, clinicians can select tools to meet their needs, follow flexible learning paths, and access additional resources.