The AMA House of Delegates in June adopted several policies intended to increase patient access to care and lifesaving tools for mental health and substance-use disorders—all part of the American Medical Association’s ongoing advocacy to improve the health of the nation.

A report from the AMA Board of Trustees finds school districts and universities across the country are rapidly adopting efforts to increase access to naloxone. The report, introduced at the 2024 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago last month, highlights AMA policy encouraging states and communities to allow schools to have safe and effective overdose reversal medications readily accessible to staff, teachers and students.

The AMA continues to support widespread distribution and availability of naloxone and urges physicians to educate patients on naloxone and prescribe to patients at risk of overdose.

About 26,500 opioid overdoses in the U.S. were reversed by laypeople using naloxone from 1996 to 2014, according to CDC data. To bolster the use of naloxone and ensure it is more widely accessible, the AMA adopted new policy to support the expansion of naloxone availability by locating intranasal naloxone along with automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public locations.

“We know that naloxone is not only safe and effective in reversing opioid overdoses, but easy for bystanders to use when an opioid overdose is suspected. By making naloxone more accessible, particularly where AEDs are located in public spaces, we can help prevent more opioid overdoses and save lives,” said Dr. Mukkamala.

To gain an overview of the breadth and depth of the nation’s drug overdose and death epidemic, explore two updated AMA issue briefs that provide a national snapshot (PDF) and state-by-state reports (PDF).

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/overdose-epidemic/put-naloxone-next-defibrillators-public-places#:~:text=To%20bolster%20the%20use%20of,(AEDs)%20in%20public%20locations.

 

RevivaPoint™ founder Carey Davidson was at the airport one day when the idea for RevivaPoint™ came to him. He had just come from a meeting with a school administrator who asked him if naloxone should be available in schools. Carey couldn’t believe it was even a question, given the vast and ever-increasing number of opioid overdose deaths in the U.S., including many young people.

As he sat looking around the airport, he realized that not only should the safe, opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone be immediately accessible everywhere other life-saving equipment is found, but that the public needs to be educated about what to do when an overdose emergency occurs, because seconds count to save a life.

Carey soon developed the RevivaPoint™, a sturdy, highly visible, and secure housing unit for naloxone. The unit dispenses 2 doses of naloxone in an emergency and provides instructions and a link to a video with information about how to respond when an overdose is suspected. The U.S. Government Patent Office approved a patent for the RevivaPoint™ overdose rescue unit on May 7, 2024.

Carey’s goal is for RevivaPoint™ units to become a universally-recognized, nationwide system for public response to overdose emergencies – one that makes Naloxone more easily and quickly accessible and educates the public to administer Naloxone first and then call 9-1-1.