Commentary: Creative use of data helps fight the opioid epidemic

Overdose deaths from opioids, including prescription opioids and heroin, have increased almost six times since 1999. Overdoses involving opioids killed more than 47,000 people in 2017, and a third of those deaths involved prescription medications.

Moody-Williams

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has expanded its data tool involving opioid prescriptions. Its update to its “mapping tool’’ shows “the agency’s commitment to opioid data transparency and using data to better inform local prevention and treatment efforts,’’ says Jean Moody-Williams, regional CMS administrator, in a new GHN Commentary.

“These interactive features allow health care professionals combating the opioid crisis to better understand trends in prescribing rates in their areas,’’ she writes.

Here’s a link to her Commentary.