There were 118 fewer opioid-related deaths in Maine last year, which health advocates attribute to a campaign aimed at promoting harm reduction efforts.
Dr Erik Steele of the 1,000 lives campaign says emergency rooms in Maine are being encouraged to follow a five-step system that includes giving patients at risk for opioid-related overdoses a prescription for buprenorphine and a dose of Narcan to take home.
"If it's a new medication, it always takes some learning to get comfortable doing it," Steele said. "But I think that barrier is coming down as people have come to appreciate the lifesaving benefit of the drug."
Steele says 26 of Maine's 33 emergency rooms now consistently prescribe buprenorphine to at risk patients.
