Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Utah has reduced opioid prescriptions by 41% since 2017.
- These efforts are reflected in an art display at Utah Valley Hospital, and were celebrated at a press conference on Tuesday.
- Changes have been made through education and use of alternative pain management strategies to reduce the need for opioids.
PROVO — Terry Olsen was emotional as she looked at prescription bottles hanging in a chandelier at Utah Valley Hospital. The bottles represent a 41% decrease in opioid prescriptions in Utah since 2017.
She stood at a press conference on Tuesday alongside a cutout of her son, Dane Olsen, who was prescribed opioids while a teenager following an ATV accident and died of an overdose at age 25, 10 years ago.
After years of surgeries and prescribed opioids for pain management, she thought the worst was over. Then their family began learning about addiction, withdrawal, depression and anxiety.
Olsen said she doesn't know if a warning about addiction on opioids prescribed to her son would have made a difference — he needed pain medication. However, she said her heart is warmed by efforts to reduce opioid prescriptions.
"This all gives me great hope. I am so grateful that we're getting beyond the statement and opening space for discussions that happen and for lives to be saved," Olsen said.
Utah health officials and medical providers are celebrating another significant decrease in opioid prescriptions in an effort to reduce addiction and reliance on prescribed medications. They updated an art display unveiled about a year ago in an Ogden hospital to reflect another years' reduction in opioid prescriptions — going from a 26% reduction to a 41% reduction.
The display is made up of a chandelier of prescription bottles, one showing the amount of opioids prescribed in 2017 in Utah when large-scale efforts to reduce prescriptions began, and another showing the most recent data.
Dr. Stacey Bank, executive medical director of Utah's Department of Health and Human Services, said the efforts are working. The state has seen a 51% decrease in the number of deaths due to prescription opioids. She said prescription opioids caused 66% of fatal overdoses in 2014, but only 28% in 2023.
Bank said Utah has invested in data collection systems and works with families to understand why opioid deaths happen.
"As a physician, I understand the importance of these prevention efforts in helping to keep Utah's families safe and prevent unnecessary suffering," she said.
The art display shows the effectiveness of Utah's efforts, and Bank thanked community organizations for partnering with them.
"We're committed to preventing unnecessary suffering and death from drug overdoses in our families and communities, and to helping all Utahns have fair and equitable opportunities to live healthy and safe lives," Bank said.
Danielle Follett, account director for Know Your Script, a Utah-based education campaign about the dangers of prescription medication, said the No. 1 source of abused prescription medication, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is free pills from friends and family. She introduced a new campaign for people to keep their prescription medications to themselves.
She said she hopes the campaign makes an impact and teaches Utahns that sharing prescription medications is "not helping, it's hurting."
Kim Compagni, assistant vice president for pain management at Intermountain Health, said about 1 in 4 Americans suffers from chronic pain and needs management treatment.
In 2017, she said Intermountain Health realized it had more and higher dose opioid prescriptions than most other states and started the effort to reduce that. The organization has now reduced opioid prescriptions by 45% — representing 13.8 million tablets. She also said high-dose prescriptions have been reduced even more, by 50%.
We're committed to preventing unnecessary suffering and death from drug overdoses in our families and communities, and to helping all Utahns have fair and equitable opportunities to live healthy and safe lives.
–Dr. Stacey Bank, Utah Department of Health and Human Services
Compagni said doctors take efforts to make sure patients have adequate pain control, but that it isn't more than they need.
She also said Intermountain has helped with education for providers and the community about the risks of opioids and alternative resources for pain management, like other medications, exercise, physical therapy, acupuncture and nutritional counseling.
"We're also looking to make sure we don't create future chronic opioid users," she said.
To help opioid users, she said they are also working to teach about naloxone, a drug anyone can get which can help reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. She said although they have made progress there is still more to do to reach the goal of keeping everyone as safe as possible.
"We hope this display will be a visual reminder of the work that's been done, and the work that's still to come," she said.
The installation will be at the Utah Valley Hospital for the next few weeks.
