The Boards of Medical Practice, Nursing and Pharmacy have collaboratively developed and adopted a Joint Statement on Prescribing of Opioid Antagonists in response to the increasing use, misuse, and overdose deaths related to opioids. The Joint Statement is meant to offer guidance to healthcare providers in the use of opiate antagonists and is not intended to set a standard of care or replace state and federal statutes.
Opioid prescription drug abuse is a significant issue in healthcare today. Between 2000 and 2015, more than half a million people died in the United States from opioid related drug overdoses (Rudd, 2016). In Minnesota, there were 395 opioid overdose deaths in 2016, 194 that involved prescription opioids, and 150 overdose deaths that involved heroin. (MDH, 2017). Opioid misuse, abuse and overdose has been declared at an epidemic level by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Joint Statement on the Prescribing of Opioid Antagonists (PDF)
