Every 12.4 minutes, someone dies from an opioid overdose. It's a problem that doesn't discriminate. Men and women, young and old, black and white — we're all in its crosshairs.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42,249 people in this country died from opioid overdoses in 2016. To give you some perspective, that's equivalent to a jumbo jet filled with passengers falling from the sky about twice a week, every week, for an entire year. We wouldn't — and couldn't — ignore something like that. Just like planes falling from the sky, the scourge of opioids requires us all to stand up and take notice.
I live and work in Ohio, which has been described as "ground zero" for the opioid epidemic … and rightly so. In fact, according to the Ohio Department of Health, drug-related deaths eclipsed auto accidents as the state's top cause of injury deaths in 2007 and that trend has continued ever since. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Ohio's 2016 rate of 32.9 opioid-related overdose deaths per 100,000 people ranked third behind only West Virginia and New Hampshire. Per NIDA, that's more than triple the state's 2010 rate of 10 overdose deaths per 100,000.
We can spend a lot of time debating the root cause of the epidemic — pill mills, drug cartels, misinformation — but I think our energy is best served focusing on solutions.
To be clear, I'm not advocating eliminating opioids altogether. They still remain a valid option for many patients. Prescribers and patients alike simply need to be smarter, more responsible and better informed about their use.
Let me share a bit of what we're doing in my corner of Ohio. We've brought together five competing hospital systems to collaborate on the Northeast Ohio Hospital Opioid Consortium. I'm privileged to serve as the physician chair of the consortium and help guide our mission to significantly reduce the impact of the opioid epidemic in our region by sharing and implementing evidenced-based practices, promoting policy changes and increasing prevention efforts.
These five hospitals are working together to both treat the disease of opioid addiction and work to reduce its spread. We're doing this by educating and aligning our clinicians on consistent prescribing practices. We're expanding the availability of patient and public education resources. We're improving access to treatment resources for those who need help. And we're being transparent with each other, sharing data across our systems so we can accurately measure outcomes.
Where I work at University Hospitals in Cleveland, we're enhancing the safety of opioid prescribing through education, awareness and accountability. Our goal is to lead not only the region, but the nation, in appropriate opioid usage, evidence-based pain management strategies and education and advocacy for patients struggling with pain.
And our education program is producing results. On average, UH has reduced the number of opioid units it prescribes by over 130,000 for family and internal medicine, the first two areas we targeted for our usage-reduction campaign. On an annualized basis, that's over 1.5 million units.
We're starting to bend the trend downward, but we can't do it alone. We need to elevate the conversation and increase the action. Will you join us and partner in the fight against opioid overuse?
- Clinicians: Share best practices – within your health systems, organizations and with your peers (even your competitors).
- Policymakers: Advance and support legislation that addresses the problem on both the state and national level.
- Everyone else: Turn up the dialogue on this issue in your house, at work, at church and wherever you see an opportunity.
It's going to take us all — working together — to overcome this horrible epidemic. I'm confident we can do it.
Dr. Randy Jernejcic is the vice president of clinical integration for University Hospitals and the physician chair of the Northeast Ohio Hospital Opioid Consortium.