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Reno Behavioral Healthcare Hospital has officially opened its doors to patients. The behavioral healthcare hospital is the first facility of its kind to be built from the ground up in our community in more than 35 years...The 80,000-square-foot facility is at 6940 Sierra Center Parkway near Target in the Meadowood area of south Reno...The hospital offers 124 beds, and inpatient and outpatient programs for psychiatric and addiction treatment for patients of all ages...represents a new day for mental health and addiction services. Our goal is to raise the standard of care and give people another option for their treatment that has been lacking for many years...

The Washoe County Health District has released the “2018 Washoe County Chronic Disease Report Card,” the most current and available information about chronic disease and their risk factors for Washoe County...“The intent of this report is to provide a summary of chronic diseases and their risk factors in Washoe County and to serve as a source of currently-available chronic disease data. It is also intended to provide local health care providers, chronic disease practitioners, and other interested persons and programs with data they may use in their work to improve the health of Washoe County,” says District Health Officer Kevin Dick...

Governor Brian Sandoval announced...that the second meeting of his Opioid State Action Accountability Task Force will take place April 18th in Carson City...The 1 p.m. meeting will be held in the Old Assembly Chambers at the state Capitol Building...the Task Force will hear a status report of crosscutting initiatives and status reports on track one – prescriber education and guidelines; track two – treatment options and third-party payers; track three – data collection and intelligence sharing; and track four – criminal justice investigations...“This Task Force has the specific task of reviewing the policies and programs that have been put into place to address the opioid epidemic in our state,” Sandoval added. “I am looking forward to hearing reports on the progress being made to combat this epidemic.”...

UNLV is notifying 184 patients that they may have had dental implant work done with an instrument that had been used on other patients...A recent review of the dental implant process at the university’s Faculty Dental Practice Clinic found that healing abutments, which are manufactured to be a single-use item, were reused. The reuse of a healing abutment might increase the failure of a dental implant because of healing complications...“I am deeply disturbed by the allegations against the dentist in our dental school,” Regent Trevor Hayes said. “However, I am proud of the swift response of Chancellor Reilly and the system (Nevada System of Higher Education) staff in addressing these allegations and getting to the bottom of it. I have many concerns and questions regarding UNLV’s timeliness of response and depth of response, and I want to know why the system had to take over this matter.”...The dentist who reused the abutments, Dr. Phillip Devore, resigned as UNLV’s director of the faculty group practice in December and now works in private practice at Image Dental. He said there was never a public health risk because he sterilized the abutments. He said he would sometimes use a healing abutment up to five times.

Nevada’s amphetamine death rate is highest in the nation and will soon eclipse the state’s prescription opioid death rate if current trends continue, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...The death rate in Nevada attributed to “psychostimulants” — a class of drugs that includes methamphetamine, ecstasy and ADHD prescription drugs like Adderall and Ritalin — hit 7.5 per 100,00 in 2016, up nearly 32 percent from 2015. Prescription opioid deaths fell about 9 percent in the same time period, from 9.8 per 100,000 to 8.9 per 100,000...unlike opioids, there’s no overdose antidote...if prevention resources were devoted equally to opioid and amphetamine overdose, that could cut down on abuse and, ultimately, death...What’s needed...is public education that stresses that using amphetamines can be lethal, not just from overdose but because they can impact organ function and can be laced with opioids like synthetic fentanyl, a deadly substance...

Contraceptive Prescriptions

Prescription Readers

What Pharmacists Need to Know About AB 474

National Pharmacy Compliance News

• FDA Requires Labeling Update on Opioid-Containing Cough and Cold Medicines
• Latest NDTA Shows Opioids Pose Significant Impact to Public Health
• FDA Recognizes Eight European Drug Regulatory Authorities Capable of Conducting Inspections
• Incorrect Use of Insulin Pens at Home Can Cause Severe Hyperglycemia
• FDA Advises on Opioid Addiction Medications and Benzodiazepines
• Only About 3% of Pharmacies and Other Entities Voluntarily Maintain a Prescription Drug Disposal Bin, GAO Reports
• One in Five Drivers Uses a Prescription Drug That Can Impair Driving Despite Receiving Warnings
• PTCB CPhT Program Earns Accreditation From the American National Standards Institute

Just how healthy is our community? It's an important question for all of us and the latest answer was delivered...at a meeting in the county commission chambers...The study--the 2018 County Health Rankings Report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation--is in a way a county-by-county report card, of the nation's health...Douglas and Pershing counties, for instance, topped the list as the healthiest. Mineral and Nye, the least. That apparently came as little surprise to those who work in public health. Washoe, by the way, slipped in this latest survey from fourth to ninth..."We have an increased number of people who say they are in poor health."...The survey measured a list of factors including socioeconomic factors such as graduation rates, health insurance, teen births, income inequality...There was one factor, however, that played a role in a number of ways--our housing crunch...One other factor jumped out of the data: deaths related to DUI accidents.

A crisis mental health clinic in Reno abruptly shut its doors...less than a month after giving up its special community behavioral health clinic status...The nonprofit WestCare said in a statement that it has closed its Reno operations — with the exception of WestCare Homefront, which serves veterans — because of financial shortfalls with government funding partners. Just three weeks earlier, the nonprofit voluntarily gave up its participation in the certified community behavioral health clinic demonstration program but said that it would continue to operate its programs in Reno...WestCare said that its ability to provide the multitude of services required of a certified community behavioral health center was “significantly diminished” after the departure of a clinical supervisor and three clinical social worker interns...WestCare...will continue to operate the Community Triage Center and our other programs in Reno...

It says that the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority (REMSA) and Renown Health have both entered into agreements with the Northern Nye County Hospital District for a phased expansion of services over the next year...“The Northern Nye County Hospital District is proud to collaborate with REMSA and Renown to expand on the much-needed services for the thousands of residents in central Nevada,” said Justin Zimmerman, a Northern Nye County Hospital District Board Trustee. “Together, we are innovating rural healthcare delivery, creating new ways for residents to access medical care while preserving their local, independent way of life.”...Future phases of the REMSA expansion will include locally-based, 24/7 Community Paramedics, as well as community wellness and public education initiatives...Renown, in partnership with the Northern Nye County Hospital District, will be expanding on the care already being provided to residents since it opened the medical group in June 2016 at the former Nye Regional Medical Center, 825 S. Main Street...

Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt has announced the formation of a Statewide Partnership on the Opioid Crisis. The Working Group’s first meeting will take place Thursday, and will include members from local and federal law enforcement, prosecutors, experts in the medical field, elected officials, and judicial and educational representatives...The primary function of the statewide partnership is to make recommendations to the Attorney General’s Office and Nevada’s Statewide Opioid Coordinator on best practices for data sharing to combat the opioid crisis. The AG says this remains a critical gap in Nevada’s response to the crisis...