According to findings presented by NPR, “In 11 percent of American counties, often in rural communities clustered in the South, enough opioid prescriptions are being written each year for every man, woman and child to have one.”

Branson Page, MD, the Vice President of Clinical Operations for Wake Emergency Physicians has collaborated with a team of providers, including the WakeMed Director of Pharmacy, Abbie Williamson, PharmD, MHA, BCPS, and WakeMed pharmacy staff to take action against the mounting prescription drug opioid crisis.

“There are obviously too many opioids circulating out there, and the potential for abuse and misuse is very high,” Dr. Branson confirms.

How Prescription Drug Addictions Begin

Opioid drug addictions often begin after a pediatric or adult patient has received a prescription for pain relief. Yet, it is not always the patient who becomes addicted to these drugs. Since many people leave unused medications accessible in their home, others living in or visiting the home, including children, may find and take them.

Williamson asserts, “If you have drugs around the house, and you’re not disposing them properly, you’re running the risk of people accidentally ingesting the medications. People who are not necessarily seeking drugs, such as small children, can get into the medications. Yet, if they had been discarded properly, they wouldn’t have access.”

While there are instances of accidental ingestion, many drug users also report they first began using a family member’s drugs.

Dr. Page observes, “About five percent of 12th graders report misusing opioids. And, that’s based on who’s actually admitting to it, so I’m sure the real number is much higher.

“Home is usually where many who start misusing opioids gain access. I acknowledge that as medical providers, we must be careful about prescribing to vulnerable patients who are at heightened risk for addiction or misuse, but some are going to find them laying around the home, so getting those bottles out of there is paramount.”

“According to the American Medical Association (AMA), an estimated three to 19 percent of people who take prescription pain medications develop an addiction to them. People misusing opioids may try to switch from prescription pain killers to heroin when it is more easily available.”

“Among people aged 12 or older in 2021, an estimated 1.8 percent (or about 5 million people) had a prescription opioid use disorder in the past 12 months.”

“In 2021, approximately 16,706 people died from an overdose involving prescription opioids.”

The Importance of Safe Disposal

Proper disposal is critical. Yet, many people do not understand how to safely remove drugs from their homes. Tossing drugs in the trash pollutes landfills. Flushing drugs down the toilet contaminates the water supply. The only safe way to dispose of drugs is through approved collection sites.

Dr. Page explains, “Using drug take-back bins, taking them to your prescriber or taking them to a pharmacy are the only right answers for proper disposal.”

Several disposal locations are strategically located across Wake County, NC and throughout the United States. (Find a site near you.) 

WakeMed’s Drug Take-Back Bin Program

WakeMed’s program began with taking action to prevent addiction for patients accessing the WakeMed Cary Hospital pain clinic.

Williamson notes, “One of the impetuses for piloting the drug take-back bin at Cary was patient safety. When providers at the WakeMed Cary Hospital Pain Clinic changed patients’ medications or patients were no longer using a particular drug, patients had to bring them back and put them in the take-back bin. This way, pharmacy could properly dispose them.”

Now, drug take-back bins are located at all three WakeMed Hospitals: Raleigh Campus, Cary Hospital and North Hospital. A fourth site is underway in the retail pharmacy at the WakeMed Medical Park of Cary.

Williamson shares, “We are excited about the fourth collection site, but meanwhile, we have three, and people are definitely taking advantage. The Raleigh Campus one is in the E-tower entrance on the ground floor. The Cary Hospital location is in the main entrance lobby. North Hospital’s is also in the lobby right next to the gift shop.”

The drug take-back bins collect more than just prescribed opioids; the community can also discard expired and unused over-the-counter and other prescription medications. Find out more about the WakeMed Drug Take-Back Bin Program.

The Process of Safe Disposal

Throughout the country, drugs that are properly eliminated are safely made inaccessible for recirculation through an incineration process. WakeMed follows this protocol for the drug take-back bins.

According to Williamson, “WakeMed has a contract with the reverse distributor. Once the bins are full, they are sealed and taken to our reverse distributor. The reverse distributor disposes of them properly using an incineration process to prevent drugs from getting into our water supply and landfills or getting back into mainstream circulation where they can be abused.”

Saving Lives — It’s Personal

WakeMed is personally invested in putting a dent in the opioid crisis.

Dr. Branson says, “From my perspective, as an emergency medicine physician, we take care of so many drug overdoses, both accidental and intentional, in the emergency department. A number of those patients who began abusing opioids did it through either casual use, from prescription drugs found in their home medicine cabinets or a valid prescription for pain control that they unfortunately become addicted to. It happens much more often than one might think.

“Any effort to decrease community supply and the opportunity for someone to start or continue using is a benefit for us. We bring people back from the brink of death every single day in the emergency department — after opioid, fentanyl or heroin overdoses. Plus, I can’t overemphasize that this most often starts relatively benignly with prescription medications.”

Williamson agrees.

“Making sure people aren’t abusing these medications and trying to decrease overdose and unsafe medication use in our community is very important to me as a pharmacist. My job is to make sure patients are using medications properly throughout the entire medication use process — from receiving the drug to dispensing the drug to counseling about the drug and also to disposal and storage of the drug.”

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About the WakeMed Drug Take-Back Bin Program

In order to keep your family, friends and the community safe, it is essential to properly dispose of unused or expired drugs so that they don’t become a safety hazard. Medication take-back bins are the safest, most effective way to dispose of most types of prescription or over-the-counter medications. See bin locations and guidelines.

About Branson Page, MD

Dr. Branson Page, a native of High Point, North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar and received a bachelor of arts in political science. He completed his doctor of medicine at UNC School of Medicine and his residency training at UNC Hospitals, where he served as Chief Resident. Dr. Page is a board-certified emergency medicine physician. He currently serves as Vice President of Clinical Operations for Wake Emergency Physicians, a group of over 200 providers serving WakeMed and other hospitals in surrounding counties. He also serves as Associate Chief Medical Information Officer for WakeMed Hospitals. He is married to Dr. Cristy Page and has two children, aged 17 and 15 years old.

About Abbie Williamson, PharmD, MHA, BCPS

Abbie Crisp Williamson, PharmD, MHA, BCPS, is a Raleigh, NC native and the current Executive Director of Pharmacy. Since joining WakeMed in 2010, she has been in several positions within the Department of Pharmacy, such as the Operations Manager at the Raleigh Campus and the systemwide Clinical Manager. She received her doctorate of pharmacy from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2004 and a master of health care administration program from UNC School of Public Health. She completed a pharmacy practice residency and critical care residency at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (formerly Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center) in Winston-Salem, NC. Upon completion of residency training, Williamson worked as a surgery/perioperative pharmacist at Duke University Medical Center before transitioning into the Clinical Coordinator of Perioperative Services.

Williamson is an active participant in the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists. She has served as the Chair of the NCAP New Practitioner Network, as a member of the NCAP Board of Directors and was on the NCAP Health-System Practice Academy. In addition, she has served as a member of the Compliance Committee for the North Carolina Physicians Health Program.

She lives in Raleigh with her husband and three children.