Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization is associated with increased risk of subsequent infection during and after hospitalization, according to a study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases of Department of Veterans Affairs data for 985,626 hospital admissions. "Hospitalized patients who are colonized with MRSA, regardless of whether they were colonized on admission or acquired it during their inpatient stay, are at high risk for MRSA infection," VA epidemiology researcher Richard Nelson said.

Neonatologist Jodi Jackson is leading an effort in Kansas to change how hospitals treat neonatal abstinence syndrome so that mothers and infants are kept together, babies are held and comforted, and opioids are provided in decreasing dosages to ease withdrawal symptoms, rather than sending infants to the NICU. Jackson says many hospitals do not have practice standards for treating these infants.

Preliminary CDC data showed US drug overdose mortality hit record levels last year, increasing to more than 72,000 deaths, driven mainly by the continued increase in fatalities involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids rose by more than 9,000 from the prior year, reaching almost 30,000 deaths in 2017, while fatalities from heroin, prescription opioids and methadone have dropped.

The Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration want to cut next year's production quotas for six of the most commonly abused opioid drugs by an average of 10%. The agencies said the proposal would support the administration's goal to reduce opioid prescribing by one-third in three years, and it "marks the third straight year of proposed reductions, which help reduce the amount of drugs potentially diverted for trafficking and used to facilitate addiction."

Health care leaders must engage technology such as Amazon's Alexa and drone delivery systems to improve public health care, said Karen DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., a former national coordinator for health IT. Technology experts are ready to help address two large and troubling trends in public health: declining life expectancy and increasing health costs, DeSalvo said.

Some rural hospitals and clinics are contracting with telepharmacy providers to ease the shortage of pharmacists and clinicians. Centralized Healthcare Solutions, operated by the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, offers some limited telemedicine services to rural areas that can't access or afford pharmacy staff.