Naloxone Advocacy in Post-Acute and Long-Term Care

We are all familiar with the increased incidence of opioid overdoses and deaths afflicting the nation. Fatalities are linked to increased unsupervised or unauthorized prescription opioid use, adverse drug events due to dangerous high-risk prescribed drug combinations, and illicit street substances used by those who have become addicted. The 2022 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain” cautions providers about the consequences of opioid use, including when to initiate opioids, how to assess the risks, and ways to address the potential harms of opioid use (MMWR Recomm Rep 2022;71;1–95, https://bit.ly/3Wbn4Ml).