Hospitals are clogged with patients struggling with opioids
Rates of drug-related stays have increased sharply since 2005 as epidemic grows
President Donald Trump this month declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency, a move intended to direct more funding and attention toward the crisis.
Recent research on hospitalizations related to opioid use depicts a problem of increasing urgency. According to a series of government briefs published this year, nearly 1.3 million hospitalizations involving opioids occurred in the United States in 2014. The figure includes hospitalizations for abuse of both prescription and illegal drugs, including heroin.
The numbers reflect a 64 percent increase in inpatient stays and a doubling in emergency room visits related to opioids since 2005.
The reports, based on data collected from hospital bills, also analyzed opioid hospitalizations by state, sex, age and characteristics of the communities in which patients lived.
Overall, the data show that “there is no immunity to the opioid problem,” said Anne Elixhauser, a senior research scientist at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which published the briefs.
“It covers all areas, all age groups, male and female. And it’s only getting worse in the time frame we’re looking at here,” Elixhauser said.
Across states, opioid hospitalization rates varied greatly. Maryland, Massachusetts and Rhode Island had the highest rates in 2014, and Iowa and Nebraska had the lowest.
Between 2005 and 2014, inpatient stays involving opioids increased more sharply for women than men. By 2014, women had higher rates of opioid-related inpatient stays in most states, though men typically had higher rates of emergency room treatment.
In the same decade, the national rate of opioid-related hospitalizations grew most sharply among patients ages 2544. In much of the Midwest and West, however, rates of inpatient treatment were highest among patients 65 years and older.
Different drugs are typically at play between these groups, Elixhauser said. Prescription drugs are more likely to play a larger role among older patients.
Rates of opioid-related inpatient stays were highest in large metropolitan areas between 2005 and 2014. But hospitalization rates in small and medium metropolitan counties and in rural areas more than doubled during this period, far exceeding the growth in cities.
There is a clear association between opioid use and poverty, Elixhauser said. In most of the country in 2014, the highest opioid hospitalization rates were among patients living in the lowest-income communities.
In addition to the recent briefs, data maintained online by the AHRQ show that most inpatient stays involving opioids during the last decade were among patients covered by Medicaid, closely followed by Medicare patients.
The data also show a steep increase in Medicaid-covered hospital stays, and a decrease in uninsured stays, after the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014.