COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Drug overdose deaths in South Carolina increased by more than 50% after the COVID-19 pandemic started, state health officials said, Final figures from death certificates show 1,734 people died in drug overdoses in South Carolina in 2020, a 53% increase from the 1,131 deaths reported in 2019, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control said.
Below is Alston & Bird's Health Care Week in Review, which provides a synopsis of the latest news in healthcare regulations, notices, and guidance; federal legislation.
Below is Alston & Bird’s
Health Care Week in Review, which provides a synopsis of the latest news in healthcare regulations, notices, and guidance; federal legislation and congressional committee action; reports, studies, and analyses; and other health policy news.
Week in Review Highlight of the Week:
This week, CMS released its FY 2022 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long-Term Care Hospital Rates Proposed Rule. Read more about the rule and other news below.
I. Regulations, Notices & Guidance
On April 26, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidance entitled,
Nonclinical Testing of Individualized Antisense Oligonucleotide Drug Products for Severely Debilitating or Life-Threatening Diseases; Draft Guidance for Sponsor-Investigators. FDA is publishing this draft guidance to help sponsor-investigators with developing the nonclinical information that FDA recommends to support an investigational new drug application (IND) for certain individual
Upstate hospitals are at odds over how to handle patients who are treated for opioid overdoses in emergency rooms.
Prisma Health s Greenville Memorial Hospital and Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System give patients naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversal drug, as they re being discharged. That s so even if they re not ready to seek recovery from addiction, they have an antidote that could keep them alive if they overdose again.
Bon Secours St. Francis hopes to distribute naloxone in the future, but a spokesperson said the hospital doesn t yet have the proper measures in place.
AnMed Health does not hand out naloxone, and its emergency room director questions the value of doing so.