The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety enthusiastically applauds the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Foundation’s newly launched campaign to promote continuous monitoring of all patients receiving opioid analgesics to manage their pain.
To exemplify its support for the AAMI Foundation’s National Coalition to Promote Continuous Monitoring of Patients on Opioids Campaign, Physician-Patient Alliance is co-convening with AAMI a by-invitation campaign kick-off event in Chicago on November 14, 2014. “Respiratory compromise is the second-most frequently occurring preventable patient safety issue. Along with higher mortality rates and longer hospital and ICU stays, respiratory compromise costs millions of healthcare dollars every year,” said Physician-Patient Alliance Executive Director and Founder Michael Wong, JD. “We look forward to partnering with physicians, patients and families, nurses, hospital administrators, and industry partners to build the case for saving lives through continuous monitoring for all patients on opioids.” Opioid-induced respiratory compromise is a life-threatening condition that can be prevented with the use of continuous electronic monitoring. Such monitoring, Mr. Wong added, might have saved the life of 18-year-old Amanda Abbiehl. Amanda’s tragic story leads off the cover story, which originally published in the November/December 2013 issue of BI&T (Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology), a bimonthly, peer-reviewed journal from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, www.aami.org. At the campaign kick-off event, Amanda’s story will be shared by her father, Brian Abbiehl, who is on the board of directors for Physician-Patient Alliance and who, along with his wife, Cindy, founded A Promise to Amanda Foundation as a tribute to their daughter and to educate patients and their loved ones about the need for continuous monitoring of patients receiving opioids. Retired Michigan State Trooper Matt Whitman will also share his own experience with opioid-induced respiratory compromise that could have ended in tragedy but “by the grace of God.” The Physician-Patient Alliance and its Board of Advisors will be well represented at the campaign kick-off event:
- Frank Overdyk, MSEE, MD (Executive Director for Research, North American Partners in Anesthesiology; Professor of Anesthesiology, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine) will co-moderate the event.
- Kenneth P. Rothfield, M.D., M.B.A. (Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology, Saint Agnes Hospital (Baltimore, MD) will present “From Engagement to Implementation: Initiation of Continuous Pulse Oximetry in a Community Teaching Hospital.”
- Gina Pugliese, RN, MS, FSHEA (Vice President, Premier Safety Institute) will moderate the break-out session “Clinician & Patient Acceptance.”