Implementing Harm Reduction Strategies to Reduce Opioid Overdoses

Nurse practitioners play a pivotal role in ensuring patients’ access to naloxone to reduce the number of opioid overdoses. A quality improvement project was developed to determine if or to what degree the implementation of the Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit would impact patient access to naloxone in a pain management practice. Clinically, the significance is in changing prescribing practice related to naloxone. Use of the toolkit is a feasible method to offer nurse practitioners education on how to identify patients at risk of an opioid overdose and the recommendation to coprescribe naloxone.