Researchers found that incidents of NJ Medicaid beneficiaries who received buprenorphine immediately and/or shortly after an opioid-related emergency department visit increased from 4.0% in 2018 to 14.4% in 2022. The team also conducted a series of interviews with medical professionals and discussed the challenges to buprenorphine provision, including patient resistance, insurance and pharmacy obstacles, and limited training and stigmatization.
Topic
hospitals
Fines weren’t enough to keep Jersey City hospital open, so lawmakers aim to get tougher
“The idea was to monitor more closely,” Cantor said. “I don’t recall that we had discussions of imposing penalties, but just to have the state poised to be better positioned to predict when hospitals were getting into trouble.”
Dr. DeLia Explores the Future of Health Economics
This blog article by Derek DeLia examines the growing political interest in “consumer-driven” healthcare, which proposes giving individuals more direct control over healthcare spending through tools like high-deductible plans and health savings accounts.
HMN 2025: What are the promising strategies for providing health care to homeless people
“Health care providers are used to dealing with people who are deeply focused on their health, and that’s not always the case with the unhoused,” Cantor said. “If I don’t have a place to sleep or enough to eat, how can I possibly think about seeing a doctor?”
Still, Cantor said effective collaboration could help organizations stretch limited resources and meet patients where they are.
As he put it, such partnerships are not only necessary, but increasingly essential as “money is going to get tighter everywhere.”
City to Plug Budget Hole With $33M in Land Sales, Solomon is a no Vote
“It doesn’t make it a great practice, but it’s often necessary to meet competing demands,” said Pfeiffer, one being “sometimes” an interest from officials in keeping taxes low.
Prof. Cantor Discusses Housing as a Public Health Issue
Homelessness nearly doubled in 2025 with the lifting of the COVID-era eviction moratorium. Cantor noted that New Jersey has focused additional resources to support residents, but needs federal help. He’s also concerned that President Donald Trump’s recent executive order punishing homelessness as a crime will make things worse.
The unexpected way this N.J. hospital network is helping patients
“We know that the more often you go to the doctor, the more often you’re able to take care of things as they arise in a timely fashion, the better off your health is,” said Michael Smart, a professor at Rutgers Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “Transit is a real lifesaver, a literal lifesaver.”
The bigger N.J. hospitals get, the harder it is for people to escape medical debt
“If you’re the dominant health system, it puts you in the driver’s seat when you go to negotiate prices or rates — you have a lot of leverage in that situation,” said Joel Cantor, director of the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. “If you’re the hospital, that’s good. But if you’re the insured or the person paying the premiums, it isn’t great.”
New Research: Impact of Peer Support After Opioid Overdose
In this cohort study of patients treated for opioid overdose, OORP implementation was associated with an increase in MOUD initiation and a decrease in repeat medically treated overdoses. The large variation in outcomes across hospitals suggests that treatment effects were heterogeneous and may depend on factors such as implementation success, program embeddedness, and availability of other hospital- and community-based OUD services.
EJB Talks–Exploring the Path to Health Administration: Insights from Professor Jane Kaye
Dean Stuart Shapiro talks about the path to a career in health administration with Assistant Teaching Professor Jane Kaye on EJB Talks this week.