Promoting patient safety and improving the quality of patient care
Tag: opioid
In PPAHS’ latest podcast, we spoke with Thomas W. Frederickson, MD, FACP, SFHM, MBA – lead author of the Society of Hospital Medicine RADEO guide (“Reducing Adverse Drug Events Related to Opioids”). The RADEO guide is a comprehensive clinician manual created with the aim to decrease opioid-related adverse events in an inpatient setting. Continue reading “3 Limitations to the Use of Pulse Oximetry”
As we flip our calendars to October, here’s a roundup of PPAH’s top posts and tweets from last month. Continue reading “Top 10 Patient Safety Must Reads – September 2016”
We recently conducted an online survey to better understand what clinicians and the public think about how to solve the opioid epidemic. The survey was prompted by the recent letter sent by the Surgeon General to physicians in the US urging them to take a part in combating the opioid epidemic. On the Surgeon General website, healthcare providers are encouraged to help solve the opioid epidemic – “Our nation faces an opioid crisis. Health care providers are uniquely positioned to help communities and their patients #TurnTheTide on the opioid epidemic.
More than 85% of the survey respondents were either a doctor or other clinician.
Here are two preliminary results about they thought about what is the major cause of the opioid epidemic and who should take the lead in solving it (please note: these are preliminary results of the survey, so final results may differ from these preliminary findings): Continue reading “Infograph: What Physicians Think About Fighting the Opioid Epidemic”
The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas W. Frederickson, MD, FACP, SFHM, MBA – lead author of the Society of Hospital Medicine RADEO guide (“Reducing Adverse Drug Events Related to Opioids”). The guide is a comprehensive clinician manual created with the aim to decrease opioid-related adverse events in an inpatient setting.
In the first of this two-part interview, Dr. Frederickson discusses five key steps to identify and address patient conditions that pose a greater risk of respiratory depression. For readers that have yet to listen to the podcast, please click here; it’s an insightful interview relevant for any clinician working in quality improvement or directly with patients prescribed opioids.
In part two, interviewer Pat Iyer and Dr. Frederickson switches gears and focuses on monitoring issues associated with caring for at-risk patients. You can watch/listen to the interview below: Continue reading “5 Strategies to Keep Patients Safe When Receiving Opioids”
This week’s must reads brings forth key resources relevant to our latest podcast, as well as stories from around the web related to alarm fatigue, patient safety data collection, and opioid guidelines. Continue reading “Patient Safety Weekly Must Reads (September 23, 2016)”
In a recent interview with a spotlight on the RADEO guide, Dr. Thomas Frederickson, MD, FACP, SFHM, MBA highlighted obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) as a key contributing condition to greater opioid use risk.
“Sleep apnea is the number one risk factor for respiratory depression associated with the use of opioids.
[…] Patients with obstructive sleep apnea are dependent upon their arousal mechanism in order to avoid respiratory depression and eventual respiratory failure.”
In addition to being the #1 contributing risk to opioid-induced respiratory depression, OSA is also common and often under diagnosed. Dr. Frederickson states that between 7% and 22% of the adult population has a degree of sleep apnea.
The key question that arises, then, is how to better identify and account for OSA in patients receiving opioids? Here are 5 key resources to reduce the risk of respiratory compromise in this group. Continue reading “5 Key Resources to Reduce the Risk of Respiratory Compromise with Patients with Sleep Apnea”
Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A. (United States Surgeon General) sent a letter to US physicians about the impact that the opioid epidemic has had on communities and asks for their help:
I am asking for your help to solve an urgent health crisis facing America: the opioid epidemic. Everywhere I travel, I see communities devastated by opioid overdoses. I meet families too ashamed to seek treatment for addiction. And I will never forget my own patient whose opioid use disorder began with a course of morphine after a routine procedure.
It is important to recognize that we arrived at this place on a path paved with good intentions. Nearly two decades ago, we were encouraged to be more aggressive about treating pain, often without enough training and support to do so safely. This coincided with heavy marketing of opioids to doctors. Many of us were even taught – incorrectly – that opioids are not addictive when prescribed for legitimate pain.
To help fight the opioid epidemic, the Surgeon General asks physicians to sign a pledge to educate themselves about treating pain, to better screen patients, and talk about and treat addiction “as a chronic illness, not a moral failing”: Continue reading “Are You Pledging to Fight the Opioid Epidemic?”
In this week’s Must Reads, we feature a guest post by Betsy Cohen, a Certified and Licensed Rehabilitation Counselor about her management program for medical errors. On the web, we focused on some great dialogue around cooperation across multiple stakeholders to ensure the safe use of opioids. Continue reading “Patient Safety Weekly Must Reads (September 16, 2016)”
This week, we refocused our attention on the subject of opioid safety. Recently, the Surgeon General issued a letter to physicians urging them to take a part in combating the opioid epidemic.
In addition to bringing our readers the most topical articles and news from PPAHS and the web, we’ve also created a brief (2 minute – 5 question) survey to understand reactions to the Surgeon General’s letter. Please take the time to complete it here.
Continue reading “Patient Safety Weekly Must Reads (September 9, 2016)”
The cost of opioid-related adverse events, in terms of both human life and hospital expenses, remains at the forefront of the public eye. It has been estimated that yearly costs in the United States associated with opioid-related post-operative respiratory failure were estimated at $2 billion.
The Society of Hospital Medicine, which is the largest organization representing hospitalists and a resource for hospital medicine, recently released a comprehensive guide, “Reducing Adverse Drug Events Related to Opioids” (otherwise known as the RADEO guide).
To better understand the RADEO guide, the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety interviewed its lead author, Thomas W. Frederickson MD, FACP, SFHM, MBA. Continue reading “5 Key Steps to Assessing and Identifying At-Risk Patients for Respiratory Compromise”