Promoting patient safety and improving the quality of patient care
Tag: opioid pain management
By Lynn Razzano RN, MSN, ONCC (Clinical Nurse Consultant)
A recent article by Gregory Hickman, MD. in Outpatient Surgery entitled: “Pump Up Your Pain Pump Knowledge: How much do you know about the potential for post-op complications?” is an eye-opener to reinforce our need to learn what we need to know in order to prevent postoperative complications. Continue reading “Two Incorrect Beliefs About Pain Pumps That May Harm Patients”
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. Continue reading “Campaign to Promote Continuous Monitoring of Patients Receiving Opioids”
By Lynn Razzano RN, MSN, ONCC (Clinical Nurse Consultant, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
Opioid management for pregnant patients requires particular care and caution. After all, there really are two lives to think about, consider and factor in – that of the mother and her baby!
With these types of concerns in mind, on Oct. 23-Oct. 24, 2014, over 200 obstetrics and gynecology nurses attended the Massachusetts chapter conference of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN). Continue reading “8 Key Steps for Ensuring Opioid Safety in Pregnant Patients: No Need to Whisper, Time to Shout Out the Need”
[Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Doctor Weighs In. The team at Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety thank Pat for her tremendous courage and working with us on this tragic story of what happened to her husband. We hope that in this retelling, hospitals will be encouraged to ensure that similar events become “never events”.] Continue reading “Sleep Apnea + Opioids = Post-Surgical Preventable Death”
By Briggs Adams (Editorial Manager, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
When the leader of St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital respiratory therapy team was initially considering using capnography to monitor patients receiving opioids after surgery, he predicted the outcome would go in one of two ways.
“Quite honestly, we thought capnography was either going to be tremendously successful or a complete disaster,” said Harold Oglesby, Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT), Manager, The Center for Pulmonary Health, Candler Hospital, and St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System (SJ/C). Continue reading “A Decade of Excellence: Hospital Celebrates 10 “Event Free” Years of Patient Safety”
by Michael Wong, JD (Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
[This article first appeared in Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare. To read the full article, please click here.]
In its guidance, “Requirements for Hospital Medication Administration, Particularly Intravenous (IV) Medications and Post-Operative Care of Patients Receiving IV Opioids,” CMS explains the reason behind the issue for this guidance:
by Sean Power
Patient safety experts recently participated in a webinar on reducing adverse drug events and harm associated with postoperative opioid pain management programs. Premier Safety Institute, an organization dedicated to coordinating safety-related activities among national organizations to help improve safety, hosted the webinar.
The panel featured four patient safety experts: Continue reading “Patient Safety Experts Share 4 Insights About Safer Opioid Pain Management”