Becker's Hospital Review

53 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Meet the West Virginia lawyer overseeing 400+ opioid lawsuits against drugmakers, distributors By Harrison Cook P aul Farrell, an attorney from Hunting- ton, W.Va., is leading one of the larg- est lawsuits in modern U.S. history, which combines more than 800 suits from cities and counties nationwide against drug manufacturers and distributors, according to Bloomberg. Here are six things to know: 1. Mr. Farrell is one of the lead attorneys for this case, working alongside Joe Rice and Paul Hanly, who served as litigators for a $246 bil- lion deal with the tobacco industry in 1998 — the largest corporate settlement in U.S. his- tory, according to Bloomberg. 2. Mr. Farrell heads up a five-lawyer firm and legal consortium, which represents more than half of the municipalities suing drug- makers and distributors. 3. He grew up in West Virginia and watched his community transform into what Bloomberg calls "the opioid capital of the world." "I have people my age that I know that are ad- dicted to opioids," Mr. Farrell told Bloomberg. "I know people that have children in their early 20s that they have lost." 4. Mr. Farrell's argument for the lawsuit rests on a West Virginia public nuisance law meant to address complaints over common communi- ty issues like landfills or environmental waste. However, he is arguing opioid makers and wholesalers created a public nuisance with the opioid epidemic, and now, local governments must spend millions of dollars to address it. 5. If the local cities, states and counties win the suit against the drug industry, they could receive up to $50 billion, according to one estimate cited by Bloomberg. Twenty-five per- cent of that would go the law firms — includ- ing Mr. Farrell's — representing the cases. 6. Mr. Farell did not share an estimate for a settlement amount, as the judge overseeing the case issued a gag order barring all lawyers from disclosing specific negotiation details. n Only 'most intensive' stewardship programs effectively lower total antibiotic use By Anuja Vaidya A study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases as- sessed the effectiveness of implementing antibiotic stewardship programs in Salt Lake City-based Inter- mountain Healthcare's 15 small hospitals. Researchers divided the hospitals into three groups. Then they implemented antibiotic stewardship programs of esca- lating intensity at each group of hospitals. • Group 1 hospitals received basic antibiotic stewardship education and tools as well as access to an infectious disease hotline and antibiotic utilization data • Group 2 hospitals received those interventions in ad- dition to advanced education, audit and feedback for select antibiotics and locally controlled antibiotic re- strictions • Group 3 hospitals received all the interventions for group 2 as well as audit and feedback on the major- ity of antibiotics; additionally, an infectious diseas- es-trained clinician approved restricted antibiotics and reviewed microbiology results The study shows hospitals in group 3 experienced reductions in total and broad-spectrum antibiotic use during the interven- tion period as compared to the baseline period. Hospitals in groups 1 and 2 did not experience a reduction in antibiotic use. "Only the most intensive ASP intervention was associated with reduction in total and broad-spectrum antibiotic use when compared with baseline," the study authors wrote. n Med tech job postings growing faster than RN postings By Kelly Gooch W hile there are more job postings for registered nurses than med tech positions, postings for the latter are growing at a faster pace, accord- ing to an analysis from career finding service Joblift. For the analysis, the job platform examined roughly 2.2 million online postings for U.S. RNs over the last 12 months. They also examined 90,681 postings from the same time period for seven med tech healthcare pro- fessions — dental hygienist, diagnostic imaging worker, nuclear medicine technologist, MRI technologist, respira- tory therapist, veterinary technologist and radiation ther- apist — that only require an associate degree. The analysis found postings for RNs decreased by an aver- age of 1 percent monthly. The average monthly growth for postings for MRI technologists, veterinary technologists, di- agnostic imaging workers, dental hygienists and respiratory therapists were 9 percent, 5 percent, 5 percent, 4 percent and 4 percent, respectively. The analysis also found that some med tech positions pay better than nursing. Median salaries for radiation therapist ($80,570), nuclear medicine technologist ($75,660) and dental hygienist ($74,070) are above RNs, which, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics information from 2017, had a median salary of $70,000, according to the analysis. Additionally, researchers found the most average monthly RN postings per capita were in Hawaii (2,648), West Virgin- ia (2,460), North Dakota (2,445), South Dakota (2,335) and Maine (2,068). The most average monthly med tech job postings were in Georgia (72), Wyoming (67), North Da- kota (63), the District of Columbia (60) and Alaska (60). n

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