Starbucks will install needle-disposal boxes in some high-traffic locations after numerous employees reported finding blood and discarded needles in store bathrooms, reports USA Today.

Hospital-based physicians have a unique opportunity to find programs and practices to prevent and treat opioid addiction in isolated pockets of the healthcare system, emergency medicine physician Rebecca Parker, MD, writes in The Hill.

UC San Diego Health has rolled out various initiatives to limit opioid prescriptions and boost access to addiction treatment across its system.

After a 2018 state law required about 80 Massachusetts hospitals and satellite emergency rooms to offer opioid-addicted patients medication, hospitals are receiving guidelines to help with prescribing practices, public radio station WBUR reports.

The total care for patients with opioid use disorder costs hospitals about $11 billion annually, according to an analysis conducted by Premier.

The American Heart Association is offering two online courses for health professionals and lay people on providing care and treatment for opioid overdose victims, reports the Macomb (Michigan) Daily.

Sudents at Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon have developed a wristband that sounds an alarm when its wearer is at risk of an opioid overdose, according to engineering magazine IEEE Spectrum.

U.S. children and adolescents are increasingly dying from opioid overdoses, according to a study published on JAMA Network.

A study published in Academic Emergency Medicine clinically assessed the practice of discharging patients from the emergency department just one hour after receiving naloxone for drug overdoses.

Taking long-term opioid users off their prescription painkillers may be harmful, international health experts write in a letter published in Oxford Academic Pain Medicine.

Chronic pain patients don't fare much better taking opioids to manage their pain than they do by  taking placebos, a study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association found.

Daily medication prescribed for opioid use disorder is more cost-effective than monthly injections to treat the disorder, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found.

The Drug Enforcement Administration allegedly failed to stop millions of opioids from being diverted into West Virginia, according to a congressional report detailed by The Washington Post.

Women who fill opioid prescriptions for pain early in the postpartum period have a higher risk of developing persistent use patterns, according to a research letter published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma must release the secret marketing records of its powerful opioid, a Kentucky appeals court ruled Dec. 14, according to STAT news.

The American Medical Association, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Medical Society and Manatt Health, released a spotlight analysis of efforts to curb Pennsylvania's opioid epidemic.

Infants born with opioid withdrawal syndrome have smaller heads than babies not exposed to opioids while in utero, according to a study published Dec. 10, in the journal Pediatrics.

A study in the CDC's National Vital Statistics Reports found opioids were among the drugs most often reported in overdose deaths, which increased by 54 percent from 2011-16.

Scientists based in California have created a model that uses Google searches to predict where potential heroin overdoses will occur, according to Quartz.

A nurse working at an addiction treatment program at Boston Medical Center was denied life insurance for carrying the life-saving drug naloxone, according to wbur.