Public Health

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

The Indian Health Service, an HHS agency tasked with providing health services to American Indians and Alaska natives, has stopped several care services due to the government shutdown, Kaiser Health News reports.

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.

Timothy Fisher, MD, obstetrician and gynecologist at Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system will conduct a three-year investigation into why nine rural New Hampshire hospitals have closed maternity care units.

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

The FDA has announced the eight winners of its Innovation Challenge: Devices to Prevent and Treat Opioid Use Disorder.

St. Joseph Hospital and Trumbull Memorial, both based in Warren, Ohio, are back to normal after both facilities received a bomb threat Dec. 3, according to WKBN 27.

An armed shooter pursued two individuals through Kansas City, Kan., and to the entrance of the Kansas City-based University of Kansas Medical Center on Dec. 3 before critically injuring one and fatally shooting himself, police said, according to The Kansas City…

After this year's G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, China agreed to reclassify fentanyl as a controlled substance to restrict its illegal distribution to the United States, according to CNN.