Only Continuous Electronic Monitoring Can Ensure Patients Receiving Opioids Are Safe: AAMI Video to Keep Patients and Their Families Safe

The video describes why only continuous electronic monitoring can ensure patients receiving opioids are safe:

Surprisingly thousands of people die each year from opioid related respiratory depression and cardiac arrest. It is even more shocking to learn that this isn't limited to the recreational opioid epidemic in America. These deaths are happening to patients inside the halls of our very own hospital wards. Opioids can be very helpful for pain management, and in some cases an incredibly important component to a hospital patients comfort and recovery. But, the side effects of opioids can vary dramatically among individuals and can fluctuate from minor to life threatening.        

In discussing the current standard of care, Marilyn Neder Flack (Executive Director at Association, AAMI) and Senior Vice President, Patient Safety Initiatives, AAMI Foundation) believes that all patients receiving opioids should be continuously electronically monitored:

Currently, the standard of care in this country is that a healthcare professional will go into a patient's room about every four hours- some hospitals do a little more often than that- but, regardless, after the healthcare professional checks the patient's vital signs, they may be OK at that point in time. As soon as the health care professional leaves the room, patients no longer being watched and they can slip away. They can start to deteriorate, they can move into respiratory depression, they can move into brain death or actual death. Only through the use of continuous electronic monitoring can you ensure that the patient is safe 100% of the time.   

In the video, Laura Batz Townsend describes the tragic loss of her mother, who was left unmonitored after successfully undergoing knee surgery. Says Ms. Townsend:

I would encourage all patients after surgery to be continuously monitored during their stay.

For a transcript of the AAMI video, please click here.

The AAMI video can be viewed on the PPAHS YouTube Channel, by clicking 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, to improve healthcare delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org.

SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

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