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How one city’s VA health system has greatly reduced opioid prescribing

The Cleveland Veterans Affairs health system used technology and best practices to significantly reduce the doses of opioids prescribed by its clinicians.

Though rates of illicit drug use are on the rise across the United States, opioid addiction leading to death by overdose often begins with a doctor’s well-meaning prescription for pain medicine.

Ohio, where two of us (A.M. and J.T.) work as physicians, has been particularly . In 2016, Ohio reported from unintentional drug overdose (a 33 percent increase from the previous year), one of the highest totals in the country for this preventable cause of death. As a

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