Opioid Guidelines Proliferate as CDC Guideline Process Bogs Down

As the Centers for Disease Control struggles to finalize its draft guidelines for opioid prescribing, states and private health providers are in increasing numbers producing their own opioid guidelines — a situation that could lead to confusion, some say. For example, Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia has asked its emergency room physicians to use a set of opioid guidelines that was based on guidelines from the Oregon College of Emergency Physicians. A research paper this month in the Journal of Emergency Medicine details how the guidelines have helped cut down on opioid prescr...