Health Care Utilization of Opioid Overdose Decedents with No Opioid Analgesic Prescription History.

Opioid overprescribing is a major driver of the current opioid overdose epidemic. However, annual opioid prescribing in the USA dropped from 782 to 640 morphine milligram equivalents per capita between 2010 and 2015, while opioid overdose deaths increased by 63%. To better understand the role of prescription opioids and health care utilization prior to opioid-related overdose, we analyzed the death records of decedents who died of an opioid overdose in Illinois in 2016 and linked to any existing controlled substance monitoring program (CSMP) and emergency department (ED) or hospital discharge records.

Regional Spread of an Outbreak of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae Through an Ego Network of Healthcare Facilities.

Background: In 2013, New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-producing Escherichia coli, a type of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae uncommon in the United States, was identified in a tertiary care hospital (hospital A) in northeastern Illinois. The outbreak was traced to a contaminated duodenoscope. Patient-sharing patterns can be described through social network analysis and ego networks, which could be used to identify hospitals most likely to accept patients from a hospital with an outbreak.

Optimization of the monitoring of landfill gas and leachate in closed methanogenic landfills.

Monitoring of the gas and leachate parameters in a closed landfill is a long-term activity defined by national legislative worldwide. Serbian Waste Disposal Law defines the monitoring of a landfill at least 30 years after its closing, but the definition of the monitoring extent (number and type of parameters) is incomplete. In order to define and clear all the uncertainties, this research focuses on process of monitoring optimization, using the closed landfill in Zrenjanin, Serbia, as the experimental model.