Jun 13, 2018 3 min read

Fewer people have been admitted to hospitals in Pennsylvania during the past two years for overdoses of pain medication, but the rate of hospital admissions for those who have overdosed on heroin has again increased.

In what could be viewed as a ray of hope for attempts to stem the heroin epidemic, however, the 12.7 percent increase in hospital heroin overdose admissions during 2016-17 was the smallest increase in recent years, according to figures released today by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.

The rate of increase for heroin overdose admissions had been about 24 percent between 2011 and 2016.

“These findings continue to stress the alarming impact the opioid problem has on Pennsylvania families,” said Joe Martin, executive director of the council, known as PHC4.

The rate of hospital admissions for overdoses of pain medication was down by 2.2 percent. Included in this group are commonly prescribed pain medications such as oxycodone, synthetic pain preparations such as fentanyl, methadone and a host of other drugs.

Washington had an admission rate of 62.5 per 100,000 population. Greene County had fewer than 10 hospitalizations in 2016 and 2017, but the council calculated the county’s rate at 35.1.

In 2017, treating those who were admitted to hospitals for overdoses – heroin and other painkillers combined – cost an estimated $32 million.

“We understand the health care costs associated with the opioid epidemic are staggering,” said Erich Curnow, director of clinical and case management services for the Washington Drug and Alcohol Commission.

His organization partners with the three hospitals in Washington County and local centers of excellence in what Curnow called “a warm handoff.”

He explained when an overdose survivor, someone experiencing withdrawal or a patient with what is known as “co-morbidity” – an infection or abscess caused by intravenous injection of drugs – the hospital can contact the drug and alcohol commission.

“We have case managers embedded in Washington and Mon Valley (hospitals) and a 24-hour crisis line,” Curnow said.

“To anybody with an opioid use disorder, we respond and connect that patient to appropriate substance use disorder treatment facilities.

“If we can even get one in five people into treatment, that represents a 20 percent cost savings to the hospital in terms of admission or readmission. Obviously, we would like to get 100 percent of people to agree to treatment, but they have the right to refuse.

“We can’t force people into treatment.”

The mortality rate for patients admitted for heroin overdoses was 9.6 percent in 2017, up from 9.3 percent in 2016, according to the council’s statistics.

There were 1,747 admissions for pain medication overdoses in 2017, down from 1,787 in 2016. The mortality rate for those admitted for pain medication overdoses was 5 percent in 2017, up from 2.9 percent in 2016.

On average, heroin overdose patients and pain medication patients stayed in the hospital 3.4 days and 4.4 days, respectively.

The council placed the average age of a person entering a hospital for a heroin overdose at 33, while the average age of a person overdosing on pain medication was 53.

The council notes its analysis does not include overdoses that did not result in a hospital admission. So, for example, people treated with naloxone, those who are released from the emergency room or overdose deaths outside hospitals are not part of the statistics.