Inside STAT: In national first, N.J. program will let paramedics administer buprenorphine

(ADOBE)

New Jersey’s health commissioner this week authorized paramedics to administer buprenorphine to patients almost immediately after they're revived from an opioid overdose, signaling a possible paradigm shift. The program, the first in the nation, hopes to serve two purposes: one is to curb the withdrawal symptoms that those who are revived from an overdose using naloxone experience, and the other would be to get them on the path to more long-term treatment with buprenorphine, which has become the center of opioid addiction treatment around the country. STAT’s Lev Facher has more here on what one addiction expert called “a potentially brilliant idea.”