
Giving nurse practitioners the authority to prescribe buprenorphine has brought that gold standard treatment for opioid addiction to people who might not have had access to it before, according to a new study led by Tracy Klein, PhD, associate professor at the Washington State University College of Nursing in Vancouver.
Klein and her colleagues Dan Hartung, PharmD, and Jonah Geddes, MPH, used Prescription Drug Monitoring Data to look at prescription and dispensing patterns in Oregon before and after nurse practitioners and physician assistants gained the authority to prescribe buprenorphine in 2017. Before that time, only physicians were allowed to prescribe the medication nationally.
Her study … » More …