Community Care of North Carolina just announced an effort we have been working with them on -- a statewide rollout of the Chronic Pain Initiative that has been so successful in Wilkes County! Stay tuned for more information how you can participate.

The Chronic Pain Initiative seeks to address these problems through a broad partnership that includes CCNC, the North Carolina Hospital Association, local hospitals and EDs, health departments, primary care doctors, faith-based programs and law enforcement.  CCNC is providing financial support and tapping into CCNC’s local networks – professionals expert in local conditions and resources for treatment.

The effort is modeled on a highly successful Wilkes County overdose prevention program known as “Project Lazarus.” In response to some of the highest overdose death rates in the country, Project Lazarus developed improved emergency room approaches to reversing respiratory depression due to opioid toxicity. While Project Lazarus educated doctors on safe opioid prescribing, Wilkes Regional Medical Center changed its ED policies around narcotic prescribing and established discharge planning regimes that more effectively manage pain control.

Results from the Wilkes County project were impressive:  the overdose death rate dropped 42 percent, with only four overdose deaths confirmed so far in 2011. Substance abuse related ED admissions dropped by 15.3 percent from 2008 to 2010. In 2010, 10 percent of fatal overdoses were the result of a prescription for an opioid analgesic from a Wilkes prescriber, down from 82 percent in 2008.