Local students lead research of opioid disposal
Environmentally friendly method has been effective.
Students at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine and Cedarville University School of Pharmacy are helping to lead a study into the use and effectiveness of opioid disposal bags.
Disposal bags let users deposit unused prescription pills, add water and mix them to deactivate the drugs in an environmentally friendly way so they can be thrown out safely and keep the drugs from being used by someone else.
“By using these bags in a socially responsible, environmentally friendly way, it’s closing that loophole,” stated Michael Holbrook, a third-year medical student and member of the Boonshoft School of Medicine’s Physician Leadership Development Program. “It’s getting the chemicals not only out of medicine cabinets, but potentially out of the water and soil as well.”
Wright State said in a statement that the research project began as a collaboration between students at Wright State, Cedarville and Generation Rx, an organization supported by the Cardinal Health Foundation and the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy.
The students are working with 50 pharmacies in southwest Ohio to use as points of distribution for the opioid disposal bags.
First-year pharmacy students at Cedarville University, who are required to work at clinical sites, are helping to get partnerships off the ground.
“We’re probably at 40 currently, and our goal is to get into all 50 so they can be dispensation points for the bags,” said Holbrook. He is working with Caleb Tang, a third-year student at the Cedarville University School of Pharmacy.
To keep track of the use and effectiveness of the opioid disposal bags, Holbrook and Tang are including surveys that are given out when the medications are dispensed and three months afterward. The surveys seek to capture how customers engage with their medications and if their perceptions change. Surveys are still being collected but the project could indicate next steps for helping to fight painkiller abuse in southwest Ohio.
Holbrook and other students from the Boonshoft School of Medicine presented the project design at the 2017 Institute for Healthcare Improvement National Forum in Orlando.