After more than 1,000 orthopaedic procedures at a city health system, roughly 61 percent of the opioids prescribed to patients went unused, according to new research. This was discovered within a study at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania that showed most patients responded to text messages designed to gauge patients’ usage of their prescriptions. Knowing that so many patients are comfortable texting this information to their care teams is extremely useful as medical professionals look to right-size painkiller prescriptions and reduce the amount of opioids that might be misused when they’re left over. This study was published in NEJM Catalyst.