3 Ways to Make Opioids Safer: Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety Encourages Patient Assessment and Monitoring

CHICAGO, Aug. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) today released three ways to make opioids safer.

PPAHS recently issued an interview with Peggy Lange, RT, Director of the Respiratory Care Department at St. Cloud Hospital, on her team's use of capnography in procedural and conscious sedation. Listen to the interview with accompanying slides on Youtube, or read the transcript by clicking here.

Michael Wong, JD (Executive Director, PPAHS) said that the interview with Ms. Lange has proven to be one of the most popular interviews in the PPAHS podcast series on the value on continuous electronic monitoring to-date. In understanding why Ms. Lange's interview is popular, Mr. Wong explained:

"The subject of the interview with Ms. Lange is a particularly topical one. Both the institutional and public eye has been focused on opioids and the 'opioid epidemic.' And along with this, the body of knowledge related to their safe use continues to grow."

Because of this interest in better managing opioids, PPAHS released "3 Ways to Make Opioids Safer":

#1 Way to Make Opioids Safer - Avoid Respiratory Depression During Conscious Sedation

PPAHS interviewed Richard Kenney, MSM, RRT, NPS, ACCS, RCP (Director, Respiratory Care Services, White Memorial Medical Center). In the interview, Mr. Kenney discusses how White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles experienced a "better than fifty percent reduction in calls of rapid responses" and how successful implementation of both capnography and pulse oximetry monitoring was a key driver in this. To watch the full interview on YouTube, click here.

#2 Way to Make Opioids Safer - Employ Strategies for Reducing Adverse Events and Related Harm

In a 2014 webinar by Premier Safety Institute, a panel of health experts focused on continuous electronic monitoring of post-surgical patients receiving patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). It featured:

• Bhavani S. Kodali, MD, associate professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Harold Oglesby, RRT, manager, The Center for Pulmonary Health, Candler Hospital, Saint Joseph's/Candler Health System
• Joan Speigel, MD, assistant professor, anesthesiology, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Michael Wong, JD, executive director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety
• Gina Pugliese, RN, MS, vice president, Premier Safety Institute®, Premier, Inc.

The discussion ranged from usage of capnography and pulse oximetry in continuous monitoring, to the importance of clinician training and patient education. For a summary of some of the key points raised during the discussion, read the article here. Watch the webinar archive here.

#3 Way to Make Opioids Safer - 5 Steps for Preventing Opioid Harm to Patients

Co-authored along with Stephanie Uses, PharmD, MJ, JD, Patient Safety Analyst at ECRI Institute and Lynn Razzano, RN, MSN, ONCC, Clinical Nurse Consultant at Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety, this article published on The Doctor Weighs In builds upon the importance of continuous monitoring in opioid harm reduction. In addition to implementing the right monitors and alarms, the article also calls for the empowerment of nurses and other clinicians to pro-actively intervene through the use of established protocol. Read the full article here.

About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to promote safer clinical practices and standards for patients through collaboration among healthcare experts, professionals, scientific researchers, and others, in order to improve healthcare delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org.

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SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS)

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http://www.ppahs.org