By Michael Wong, JD (Founder/Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
Should Patient Safety Best Practices Be Legislated?
That’s the question that I have been asking myself ever since the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety was asked to support the Inpatient Opioid Safety Act of 2021(Bill # HR5932) introduced by Representatives Annie Kuster (D-NH) and Tom Emmer (R-MN). This bi-partisan supported legislation seeks to address the national addiction and opioid epidemic by requiring hospitals to continuously monitor all Medicare or Medicaid patients who are administered an opioid regardless of route of administration. Continuous monitoring of such a patient would be required unless such monitoring is contraindicated by the attending physician.
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