Fla. Stat. Ann. § 395.1041(6)

• This law, enacted in 2017, requires each hospital with an emergency department to develop a best-practices policy to prevent unintentional drug overdoses.
• Emergency department policies created under this law may include the use of SBIRT protocols, employment of licensed or certified behavioral health professionals or peer specialists in the emergency department to encourage patients to seek treatment, guidelines for emergency department practitioners authorized to prescribe controlled substances (such as buprenorphine) to reduce the risk of opioid abuse.
• In addition, emergency department policies can include a process for providing an overdose patient or the patient’s next of kin with information about licensed substance use treatment services, and a process to obtain the patient’s consent to notify the patient’s next of kin and each practitioner who prescribed a controlled substance to the patient regarding the patient’s overdose, the patient’s location, and the nature of the substance involved in the overdose.