Intermountain Healthcare pitching in $2 million to fight opioid misuse
Part of the donation will support provider education that promotes best prescribing practices for clinicians who prescribe opioid medications.
Intermountain Healthcare will be chipping in $2 million in 2018 to support community efforts to decrease opioid misuse, overdose and deaths, a move which follows a $3 million donation provided from 2015 through 2017 to address the opioid crisis in Utah.
In 2018, most of the funds contributed by Intermountain will be donated to programs of the Opioid Community Collaborative, a group formed in 2015 by Intermountain, the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, the Utah Department of Health, Weber Human Services, Davis Behavioral Health and other community agencies.
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Part of the donation will also support provider education that promotes best prescribing practices for clinicians who prescribe opioid medications. Intermountain recently announced a goal of reducing by 40 percent the number of opioid tablets in prescriptions for acute care conditions -- a goal designed to reduce the number of unused, leftover tablets.
Utah is currently seventh in the nation for prescription opioid overdose deaths, according to the Utah Department of Health. In 2014, an average of 24 Utah adults died every month as a result of prescription opioid overdoses. More than 7,000 opioid prescriptions are filled in the state every day, and physical dependence on those prescriptions can occur within seven days of use.
[Also: Study challenges notion that emergency departments foster opioid misuse]
"Drug poisoning is the leading cause of death in Utah -- more deadly than falls, car crashes and gun deaths," said Intermountain Healthcare Community Health Partnership Director Lisa Nichols in a statement. "When we consider all the people touched by tragedies involving opioid misuse, everyone is potentially at risk and has a stake in addressing the problem."
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based, nonprofit system of 22 hospitals, 180 clinics, a medical group with some 1,500 employed physicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services.
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com
