The Ohio Development Services Agency announced Aug. 27 the winners of its Opioid Technology Challenge, each of whom will receive a $1 million prize to further develop their proposed projects to address the opioid epidemic.

The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania has created the Opioid Learning Action Network.

Though the U.S. Justice Department has used data analytics to comb through prescription and billing information to detect healthcare fraud for several years, its recent data-driven approach to tackling the opioid crisis may be its most successful yet.

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and West Virginia University President Gordon Gee have formed a nonprofit to push any national opioid settlement to hospitals instead of state and local governments, according to the Dayton Daily News.

HHS issued a proposal Aug. 22 to loosen privacy rules around the treatment of substance use disorder.

All beneficiaries and providers at risk of opioid misuse can't be identified, rendering a national claims database of Medicaid opioid prescribing inadequate, according to a report from the Office of Inspector General.

Federal authorities are investigating Dallas-based University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center after two nurses died of fentanyl overdoses in restrooms at UT Southwestern's William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Medicaid prescriptions for buprenorphine, a treatment for opioid use disorder, differed significantly by state in 2018, according to a report from the Urban Institute.

Most Americans agree that people with opioid use disorder need both medical and nonmedical resources for treatment. However, many do not know where to find these resources or how much they will cost, according to a new survey from NORC at the University of Chicago.

Endo Pharmaceuticals has agreed to an $11 million settlement to resolve claims that the drugmaker helped fuel the opioid epidemic, according to Bloomberg. The settlement allows Endo to sidestep a potentially damaging opioid trial set to begin in October. 

Post-surgery recovery programs with opioid-sparing and opioid-free protocols are increasingly being leveraged to prevent the risk of opioid addiction and improve pain management for patients.

Internal documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times reveal Purdue Pharma officials considered manipulating keyword searches to direct web traffic away from a series of articles on the opioid crisis to a site called PurduePharmaFacts.com.

Florida's prescription drug monitoring program is now sharing data with the Military Health System's PDMP in a move that will help expand care providers' access to military members' medication histories.

A new study on guidelines aimed at lowering opioid prescriptions to prevent addiction shows the potential success — and challenges — of changing prescribing habits, according to NPR.

Children with private insurance undergoing tonsillectomies often receive opioids, with an average prescription of six to 10 days, according to a study published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

Nineteen percent of Americans are using opioids to specifically to treat migraine headaches, up from 16 percent in 2009, according to new research.

The National Association of Attorneys General on Aug. 5 sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to remove federal treatment barriers for opioid use disorder, according to AHA News.

While U.S. pharmacies are dispensing more naloxone prescriptions than ever before, the amount of opioid prescriptions dispensed still outpaces those for the lifesaving opioid overdose antidote, according to a CDC report cited by STAT.

McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen have proposed paying $10 billion to settle state lawsuits that accuse the companies of helping to fuel the opioid epidemic, according to Bloomberg.

An estimated 1.2 million Americans have achieved long-term recovery from opioid use disorder, according to an study published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.