News

The US Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine issued a report in 1996 that set the standards for reporting of cost-effectiveness studies in the field, resulting in a rapid expansion of publications and establishment of similar national standards in other jurisdictions. Twenty years later, the Second Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine has […]

Public health advocates have been concerned about rising e-cigarette use (“vaping”) among teens. For the first time in 2014, teens reported being more likely to use e-cigarettes than regular cigarettes. New Jersey implemented the first law restricting the purchase of e-cigarettes or other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) in 2010; almost all states followed suit in the […]

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured recently released an issue brief detailing the most costly outpatient drugs to Medicaid in 2014 and the first half of 2015. Using data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the authors analyzed outpatient drug costs based on Medicaid spending (before rebates) to determine which drugs account […]

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on Thursday announced the launch of a new Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) designed to log and analyze every prescription for opioids and other controlled substances dispensed anywhere in the state. The new web-based computer program is Pennsylvania’s latest tool in the battle to lower the body count of prescription drug […]

University of Pennsylvania Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and LDI Senior Fellow Zachary Meisel, MD, has received a $2.1 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The award will fund a 36-month comparative effectiveness study of enhanced opioid risk communication strategies for pain management following acute care. Meisel’s research team includes  LDI Senior Fellows Carolyn […]

Two weeks ago, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced changes in buprenorphine treatment regulations that would allow certain licensed physicians to provide buprenorphine to up to 275 patients. This is an increase from the 100 patient limit set forth by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Reauthorization Act of 2006. The change comes after […]

Following approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), probuphine will become the latest medication-assisted treatment (MAT) option to treat opioid use disorders in the United States. Probuphine is a subdermal implant that consists of four one-inch rods that deliver a daily dose of 8 mg of buprenorphine, an opioid agonist that staves off […]

In a recent panel discussion at Penn, Leana Wen, MD, MSc, Baltimore City Health Commissioner, spoke about the role of public health in Baltimore and how academic institutions can work with public health departments. I spoke with Dr. Wen before her panel about how policymakers use economic evidence, and how we can make evidence more useful to […]

Pilot grant awardee Dr. Yuhua Bao was invited to present her recent publication, “Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Are Associated with Sustained Reductions in Opioid Prescribing by Physicians,” at the Health Affairs Issue Briefing on Behavioral Health in Washington, D.C on June 7, 2016. Dr. Bao’s presentation centered on her publication in the June 2017 issue of Health Affairs and is […]

As overdose deaths soar, the opioid epidemic has captured the attention of the White House, Congress, and the public. In a recent survey, about 44% of people say that they personally know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers. Increasingly, we see addiction as a health problem rather than as a problem to be solved […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued new regulations for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) including vaporizers and e-cigarettes. The regulations will raise the purchasing age of ENDS to 18 years to align with cigarettes, require all ENDS manufacturers to submit chemical and manufacturing information for FDA review, which will result in new […]

According to a new report from the CDC, in 2014 one person died from hepatitis C (HCV) every 27 minutes, totaling 19,659 Americans in one year. The number of people dying from HCV surpassed the total number of deaths from 60 other infectious diseases combined, including HIV. Although lifesaving, the high cost of current treatments for […]