Citation

Green TC, Dauria EF, Bratberg JP, Davis CS, Walley AY. Harm Reduct. J. 2015; 12(1): 25.

Affiliation

Clinical Addiction Research Education Unit, Boston University School of Medicine/ Boston Medical Center, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd Floor, Boston, Massachusetts, 02118, USA. awalley@bu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/s12954-015-0058-x

PMID

26245865

PMCID

PMC4527253

Abstract

The leading cause of adult injury death in the USA is drug overdose, the majority of which involves prescription opioid medications. Outside of the USA, deaths by drug overdose are also on the rise, and overdose is a leading cause of death for drug users. Reducing overdose risk while maintaining access to prescription opioids when medically indicated requires careful consideration of how opioids are prescribed and dispensed, how patients use them, how they interact with other medications, and how they are safely stored. Pharmacists, highly trained professionals expert at detecting and managing medication errors and drug-drug interactions, safe dispensing, and patient counseling, are an under-utilized asset in addressing overdose in the US and globally. Pharmacies provide a high-yield setting where patient and caregiver customers can access naloxone-an opioid antagonist that reverses opioid overdose-and overdose prevention counseling. This case study briefly describes and provides two US state-specific examples of innovative policy models of pharmacy-based naloxone, implemented to reduce overdose events and improve opioid safety: Collaborative Pharmacy Practice Agreements and Pharmacy Standing Orders.

Language: en