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Nurse Practitioners Take Action
in Response to Addressing Opioid Crisis
With the country in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis, the medical community has issued an “all hands on deck” call to providers, and nurse practitioners seem to be stepping up in a big way.

Just recently Boston Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital jointly held an 8-hour MAT waiver training, conducted by four NPs and attended by 120 NPs, the maximum for that particular course. “We think there is special value in NPs training NPs,” said Colleen LaBelle, MSN, RN-BC, CARN. LaBelle is Program Director for the Massachusetts State OBAT B and a PCSS clinical mentor.

“NPs are really seeing this as a priority,” LaBelle said. “We’re all pushing to get waivered to expand access to care.” According to the National Institutes of Health, only about half of all counties in the country have a clinician who is waivered to prescribe buprenorphine. 
[ Read more ]
Of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ACEP Opens Access to Paper on OUD in Emergency Depts.
The American College of Emergency Physicians as opened access to Identification, Management, and Transition of Care for Patients with Opioid Use Disorder in the Emergency Departments. The paper includes information for screening for OUD, managing acute withdrawal, and transitioning patients away from the emergency departments and more.

The paper concludes that "A robust infrastructure to support, educate, and enable emergency physicians to manage opioid use disorder in an evidencebased fashion and rapidly transition care to outpatient services is a necessary step in turning the tide against an opioid epidemic affecting communities nationwide."  [Read study]
NIDA Releases Map Showing Opioid Summaries by State
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has released a map that shows state opioid-related ocverdose death rates and prescribing levels, as well as state-specific resources. Each state page also includes data on comorbidities such as HIV, hepatitis C, and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. NIDA’s new opioid state summaries also allow you to search for NIH-funded projects related to opioid use and opioid use disorder.
FDA Launches Innovation Challenge to Spur Development of Medical Devices to Prevent and Treat Opioid Use Disorder
As part of the agency’s ongoing commitment to address the epidemic of opioid misuse, FDA launched an innovation challenge to spur the development of medical devices, including digital health technologies and diagnostic tests that could provide novel solutions to detecting, treating and preventing addiction, addressing diversion and treating pain.

The agency is encouraging developers to submit proposals.  [Learn more]
SAMHSA Issuing New PCSS Grant for Universities
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2018 Provider’s Clinical Support System – Universities (Short Title: PCSS-Universities) grants. The purpose of this program is to expand/enhance access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT) services for persons with an opioid use disorder (OUD) seeking or receiving MAT through ensuring the education and training of students in the medical, physician assistant and nurse practitioner fields. Eligible applicants are medical schools, physician assistant schools, and schools of nursing (programs for nurse practitioners will be focus).   [Learn more]
CDC Looking for Input on Project Centered on
Best Practice Opioid Prescribing
CDC is conducting a new project to estimate best practice opioid prescribing in the United States to address some key questions around opioid prescribing to help curtail the current opioid overdose epidemic in our nation. Using large health insurance claims data, CDC will estimate current opioid prescribing rates in the US for various conditions and procedures. Discussion of this project will take place June 19. Individuals making public comments during the meeting will have a 2-minute speaking limit to allow for as many comments as possible.  [Learn more]
SAMHSA Releases Updated Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announces the update of an important resource on opioid overdose prevention. The SAMHSA Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit offers information and facts from literature and links to resources to prevent opioid-related overdoses and deaths. Because interdisciplinary collaboration is critical to success, SAMHSA offers the Toolkit as an educational resource for community members, first responders, prescribers, patients, and families.   [Download Toolkit]
AHRQ Final Report on Noninvasive Nonpharmacological
Treatment for Chronic Pain and Experience Survey
The Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) Program at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has completed an evidence review on Noninvasive Nonpharmacological Treatment for Chronic Pain. The purpose of the review was to assess which noninvasive nonpharmacological treatments for common chronic pain conditions improve function and pain for at least one month after treatment. [Learn more]
News and Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New York Times

New England Journal of Medicine

NIDA

National Institutes of Health

Pew Charitable Trusts--Stateline

Anals of Emergency Medicine

Anals of Internal Medicine


JAMA Internal Medicine

American Journal of Psychiatry

Medscape
PCSS Online Brochure. Please share this link with colleagues: https://goo.gl/G1ay6H
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Funding for this initiative was made possible (in part) by grant nos. 5H79TI025595-03, 5U79TI026556-02 and 3U79TI026556-02S1 from SAMHSA. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.