N.J. Opioid-Related Hospital Visits Among Highest In America: Report

New Jersey consistently ranks as having among the highest opioid-related hospital visits across most patient sex and age groups, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The data came from a report showing that, nationally, hospitalization involving opioids saw a dramatic increase between 2005 and 2014. The increases involved both inpatient stays and opioid-related emergency department visits, according to new data released Tuesday by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

New Jersey ranks as having among the highest opioid-related inpatient stays across nearly all patient sex and age groups. For opioid-related emergency department visits, New Jersey also ranked as having among the highest rates among males and in the 45-64 age group.

In all states in 2014, patients aged 25-44 had the highest opioid-related emergency department visits.

Opioid-related stays and emergency department visits are identified as all-listed diagnoses and included events associated with prescription opioids or illicit opioids like heroin.

The data presents information for the patient, sex and age groups with the highest opioid-related inpatient stay rates for 44 states and the District of Columbia for 2014. Patient sex and age groups with the highest opioid-related emergency department and visit rates are presented for 30 states that provided data in 2014.

Among men, New Jersey's emergency-department visit rate was 265.4 per 100,000 people, which ranked sixth nationally. In the 45-64 age category, the state's rate was 250 per 100,000 people, which ranked fifth nationally.

Nationally, findings from the data show that between 2005 and 2014, opioid-related inpatient stays increased faster for females than males, but by 2014, the rate was virtually the same for both. In terms of emergency department visits, the increase in opioid-related visits was similar for males and females, and males consistently had a higher visit rate than females. For both sexes, the opioid-related emergency department visit rate increased faster than the inpatient stay rate.

Females in nearly three-fourths of the states had a higher rate of opioid-related inpatient states, while males had a higher rate of emergency department visits.

Opioid-related inpatient stays were highest among patients aged 25-44 and 45-64, while the highest rate of emergency department visits was in the age group of 25-44. For all age groups, except those aged 1-24 and 25-44, the rate of opioid-related inpatient stays was consistently higher than the rate of opioid-related emergency department visits. For all age groups, the rate of opioid-related emergency visits increased faster than the rate of opioid-related inpatient stays.

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