Rx opioid rate on hospital discharge from emergency department decreased

From 2017-2018 to 2019-2020, opioid prescriptions on discharge from the emergency department declined, according to a summary of January data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Centers for Health Statistics. American epidemic announced.

Loredana Santo, MD, MPH, and Susan M. Schappert, from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, used data from the National Hospital Emergency Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) to examine review recent changes in the percentage and percentage of opioids prescribed to adults on discharge from the hospital emergency department according to patient characteristics and visits until 2020.

The researchers found that opioids were prescribed at discharge from 36.4 emergency room visits per 1,000 adults in 2019 to 2020 compared with 50.5 emergency visits in 2017 to 2018. For both For men and women, the proportion of opioid emergency room visits prescribed at discharge from the hospital in 2019 to 2020 was lower than in 2017 to 2018. There was an observed decrease in the percentage of patients. Emergency department visits with opioids prescribed at discharge from 12.2 to 8.1% in 2017-2018 to 2019-2020, respectively. Compared with 2017 to 2018, the proportion of emergency room opioid prescriptions at discharge decreased in 2019 to 2020 for non-Hispanic White and Non-Hispanic Black patients.

“This report, based on the most recent estimates from NHAMCS of emergency department visits made by Adults with opioids prescribed at dischargeshows a continued downward trend in opioid prescriptions in the emergency department setting,” the authors wrote.