Administration targets serious reforms to combat opioid epidemic
Vowing to change the way the Commonwealth treats and even thinks about substance addiction, Governor Charlie Baker ealier this week released the findings of his Opioid Working Group, a comprehensive report detailing 65 actionable steps to curb the deadly opioid epidemic.
The findings by the 18-member Working Group include short and long term action items to be implemented between now and the next three years, some requiring legislative action and funding and some that will be achieved through partnerships with private industry and federal leaders.
“Opioid abuse is a public health epidemic and I applaud our working group for producing these recommendations based on a comprehensive analysis,” Baker said. “The solution to eradicating opioids is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and will require all of us to rethink the way we treat addiction. Today’s announcements are a first step and we will aggressively pursue reforms to save lives.”
The announcement came just days after the launch of a statewide public service campaign to alert parents about the dangers of prescription opioid misuse by their kids. The report calls for additional public awareness initiatives to decrease stigma of the disease.
The cost of implementing the initiatives are estimated to be $27 million in Fiscal Year ‘16, which will be paid for through a combination of new state funds, MassHealth and reprioritization of existing state and federal grant funds.
The Commonwealth started addressing the opioid epidemic in 2004, when 456 individuals died of opioid overdoses. Since then, more than 6,600 Massachusetts residents have died, in addition to an overwhelming amount of hospital stays, emergency department visits and human suffering. According to the Department of Public Health, there were over 1,000 estimated unintentional opioid related deaths in 2015, representing a significant increase from the estimated 967 deaths in 2014. The number of opioid-related overdose deaths was nearly triple the amount of motor vehicle-related injuries recorded in 2013.
Key initiatives:
- Prevention: Support substance use prevention education in schools, medical communities, all communities
- Provide state funding for evidence-based opioid prevention programs in schools
- Create a public awareness campaign focused on reframing addiction as a medical disease
- Appoint addiction specialists to state medical boards of registration for medicine, nursing, physician’s assistants and dentistry
- Partner with a chain pharmacy to pilot statewide drug take-back program
- Implement a training program about neonatal abstinence syndrome and addiction for DCF and improve outreach to prenatal and postpartum care providers to increase training on screening, intervention and care for substance use disorder.
- Encourage the American College of Graduate Medical Education to adopt requirements for pain management and substance use disorder education.
- Intervention: Require manufacturers and pharmacies to utilize data, dispose of unused medication
- Improve the Prescription Monitoring Program and ensure data compatibility with other states
- Require PMP data to be submitted within 24 hours by pharmacies*
- Require timely reporting from the state of overdose death data to the public, including requirements for emergency medical service providers to submit overdose data to the state
Go to http://www.mass.gov/stopaddiction to read the Working Group’s Action Plan and full report.
