Increasing naloxone prescribing in the emergency department through education and electronic medical record work-aids.
Despite local, state, and national efforts, opioid misuse and overdose remains a public health concern. One strategy to reduce overdose is concurrent prescription of naloxone. This article describes how one emergency department (ED) used staff education to promote a naloxone Best Practice Advisory (BPA) and order set in the electronic health record, amongst other interventions. The BPA significantly increased naloxone prescribing for patients identified as having opioid overdose or misuse diagnoses. Similar high-reliability EMR work-aids and staff education strategies could be implemented in other EDs to increase naloxone prescriptions.