Nebraska’s Coalition to Prevent Opioid Abuse gathered Thursday at UNMC to release its strategic initiative report and highlight the coalition’s important progress.
One year ago, nearly 300 leaders in the fields of medicine, public health, social services, governmental policy and law enforcement gathered at UNMC for the “Charting the Road to Recovery: Nebraska’s Response to Opioid Abuse” summit. The goal of the summit was to proactively address abuse of prescription and illicit opioids in Nebraska from a collaborative multidisciplinary approach.
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From left, Gov. Pete Ricketts, UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., Attorney General Doug Peterson and Acting U.S. Attorney Robert Stuart. |
- Nebraska’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) Training
- Prescription Drug Take Back
- Pain Management Guidance Document
- Dose of Reality Public Awareness Campaign
- Naloxone Access
- Medication Assisted Treatment
- Implementation of Project ECHO
- Training for Health Profession Students & Providers
- Comprehensive Guide for Safe Handling of Drugs for Law Enforcement
- DEA 360° Program
Pain management guidance
Just days ago, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) released an important new prescribing resource for providers. DHHS worked with partners including the Nebraska Medical Association, professional boards, and physicians to create a document on pain management guidance.
This guidance document is intended to assist prescribers in making clinical decisions easier as well as providing effective options to treat pain while ensuring safety.
The guidance document aligns with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain and promotes consistent, safe and effective pain management standards for Nebraska prescribers. View the document on the DHHS website.
“Nebraska has been a leader in proactively addressing opioid abuse,” said Gov. Pete Ricketts. “The work of this coalition is saving lives and building defenses against the public health crisis that has engulfed communities in other states across the nation. Thank you to Attorney General Doug Peterson and our coalition partners for your continued commitment to combating prescription drug abuse.”
Leading representatives from the coalition expanded on specific details of the report. “The education in diagnosis and treatment of opioid use disorders is being addressed in a number of ways at UNMC and Nebraska Medicine, including the creation of an educational infrastructure to support the training of Nebraska’s health professionals and health professions students,” said Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., chancellor of UNMC and chair of the board at Nebraska Medicine.
“The UNMC Department of Psychiatry and Nebraska Medicine have launched an Outpatient Substance Use Disorder Clinic and will develop an Intensive Outpatient Program for patients with combined psychiatric and addiction disorders,” Dr. Gold said. “We also are well along the development of interprofessional programs to support the sharing of current information relevant to opioid use and related concerns.”
At the beginning of 2017, Dr. Gold said, Nebraska had less than 30 health care providers who had completed training to be able to prescribe buprenorphine, one of three medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Opioid Use Disorder. This fall, 213 providers were trained in Opioid Use Disorder through participation in the training summits.
“It’s very encouraging to see the progress made by all the members of the coalition in the past year,” Peterson said. “We understand we still have work to do but we have set a course in the right direction and we have already made significant strides.”