The Iowa Poison Control Center is setting up a program to provide round-the-clock clinical advice to healthcare professionals treating patients who’ve overdosed on opioids or have an opioid addiction. It’s financed with a grant from the state’s opioid settlement fund, which is getting 186 MILLION dollars from pharmacy chains and drug companies. Dr. Daniel McCabe — medical director of the Iowa Poison Control Center — says the center has always been available to provide advice about treating patients with substance use disorders — but the grant will help set up a more formal process.
The program is called I-BEACON. It will not only make clinicians like Dr. McCabe available for consultations, but will provide advice about a medication — called buprenorphine (byoo-pruh-NOR-feen) — that’s used to treat patients with an opioid use disorder.
While many doctors can prescribe buprenorphine (byoo-pruh-NOR-feen) to treat a patient with an opioid addition, but they may not be able to get immediate advice from an expert about how to monitor a patient’s use or treat an adverse reaction. McCabe says the Iowa Poison Control Hotline will now be that 24/7, 365 days a year resource.
McCabe, an emergency medicine specialist at University of Iowa Health Care, says the E-Rs throughout the state see numerous patients every day who suffer from an opioid use disorder. The Centers for Disease Control estimates 17-thousand Iowans have become addicted to opioids. The latest report from the Iowa Department of Public Safety shows there were 172 opioid-related deaths in Iowa in 2024.
