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More Opioid-Related Emergency Visits, No Change in Illicit Drug Use Treatment

Two bar charts. Top: drawing of an ambulance with statistics on emergency department visits for opioid-related care: 2014, 177.7 visits per 100,000 population, 2017, 249.1 per 100,000 population; Bottom: drawing of two people in a counseling session and data on people ages 12 and over who needed and received specialty treatment in the last 12 months: 2015, 18.3%, 2018, 15.9%; change was not statistically significant.

More Opioid-Related Emergency Visits, No Change in Illicit Drug Use Treatment (PDF, 587.7 KB)

Emergency department (ED) visits for opioid-related diagnoses grew by an average of 12.3% per year, 2014-2017, but access to treatment for illicit drug use at a specialty facility (i.e., inpatient or outpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, hospital, or mental health center) did not change 2015-2018.  An AHRQ data spotlight (PDF, 825 KB) describes how EDs could improve care by linking patients to specialty treatment programs for illicit drug use.

Source:  

  • ED Visits: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, Nationwide Inpatient Sample and Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, 2017.
  • Access to Treatment: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2018.
Page last reviewed September 2021
Page originally created September 2021

Internet Citation: More Opioid-Related Emergency Visits, No Change in Illicit Drug Use Treatment. Content last reviewed September 2021. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.
https://www.ahrq.gov/data/infographics/ed-visits-opioids.html

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