News

Connecting Pharmacy Students and Communities for Safe Medication Storage and Disposal

At the beginning of each school year, the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy sends students, old and new, to community pharmacies to share safe storage and disposal materials. In their second year back since the start of COVID-19, the College of Pharmacy partnered with OPEN to help hand out more materials and reach more […]

Read Our Fall 2023 Newsletter

Our Fall newsletter is here! Featuring new resources, information on the Fall 2023 Take Back Event, our exciting upcoming events and more! Read our Fall 2023 newsletter here. Subscribe to our newsletter here. 

OPEN overcomes barriers to identifying, caring for surgical patients at risk of substance use in Michigan Hospitals

Introduction Most Americans will have at least one surgery in their life and potentially be prescribed opioids for postsurgical pain management,1 and 6-10% of surgical patients will continue to use opioids months after a surgery.2 On average, 9.7 million Americans a year misuse opioids, and 19.7 million will be diagnosed with Substance Use Disorder (SUD).3  […]

OPEN Team Attends 2023 Rx Summit

The 2023 Rx Summit In April 2023, the OPEN team attended the 2023 Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. The Rx Summit is the largest national collaboration for professionals from local, state, and federal agencies, business, academia, treatment providers, and allied communities impacted by drug misuse. There is much offered at the Rx […]

Read Our Summer 2023 Newsletter

Our Summer newsletter is here! Featuring new programs, information on the Take A.C.T.I.O.N. training courses, our newest OPEN spotlight and more! Read our Summer 2023 newsletter here. Subscribe to our newsletter here. 

OPEN Hits Milestone for 5,000 Naloxone Kits Distributed since 2020

OPEN and Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC) are excited to have reached over 5,000 naloxone kits distributed to at-risk patients this spring.  Through our Emergency Department Naloxone Distribution Program, we aim to provide patients most vulnerable to future overdose this life-saving overdose reversal medication to take home with them.  “Naloxone is the most effective […]

How we Iterate: A Closer Look at OPEN’s Prescribing Recommendations

One of OPEN’s most important initiatives is our opioid Prescribing Recommendations. Earlier this year, we developed recommendations for a new set of pediatric procedures. In 2022, we added recommendations for additional pediatric procedures and updated many of the existing recommendations for adult surgical procedures. How do we actually go about making these changes? How did […]

Read our Spring 2023 Newsletter

Our Spring newsletter is here! Featuring new featured programs, Spring 2023 Take Back Event information, our first open spotlight and more. Read our Spring 2023 newsletter here. Subscribe to our newsletter here. 

OPEN’s Educational Materials Hit 5,000 Downloads since 2020

In January 2023, OPEN hit a substantial milestone for downloads of our educational materials. OPEN has officially reached 5,000 downloads since 2020. Our educational materials are an important resource we provide to both patients and providers. “With these materials, everyone has the opportunity to learn about pain management. We’re their biggest advocate, so we are […]

OPEN Publishes New Pediatrics Prescribing Recommendations

OPEN has released a new set of Pediatric Prescribing Recommendations based on three years of data collection and analysis of prescribing patterns and patient reported outcomes. These recommendations add nearly 40 new procedures to our extensive list centered around pediatric surgeries. Work on this new set of recommendations began after Dr. Karen Cooper moved to […]

Three Years of Research Culminating in Best Practice Recommendations for Pediatric Surgery

Dr. Karen Cooper started her residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (also known as Ear, Nose and Throat or ENT) 25 years ago, and one of the first surgeries she learned to perform was a tonsillectomy. When she began her career, the common practice was to prescribe large amounts of an opioid to manage the […]

Celebrating the Successful Fall 2022 Take Back Event

Take Back Events are organized twice a year by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) where community members can turn in unused medications they still have in their households. While these Take Back Events predate OPEN, the OPEN team saw these events as a great way to partner with community leaders and raise awareness to the […]