Jury’s In: Opioids Are Not Better Than Other Medicines For Chronic Pain
Even though millions of people take the drugs for long periods of time, there is little evidence to support that use.
Drug Shortages Continue to Compromise Patient Care
An exhaustive account of frustrations, difficulties, misspent resources, and safety concerns came across loud and clear from respondents who participated in ISMP’s August through October 2017 national survey on drug shortages.
CMS Proposes Opioid Prescribing Limits For Medicare Enrollees
Pharmacies would have new limits on filling opioid prescriptions for Medicare beneficiaries under regulations proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
EMR ‘Nudging’ Could Curtail Opioid Prescribing
Emergency Departments prescribe fewer opioid pills to their patients when the EMR default setting was set to 10 tablets.
An Opioid Remedy That Works: Treat Pain And Addiction At The Same Time
In 2016, a record 912 people died from an overdose in Colorado, according to data recently released by the state health department. Of those, 300 people died from an opioid overdose. Opioid use often leads to an addiction to heroin, which claimed another 228 lives last year in the state. Those two causes together now rival the number of deaths from car accidents in the state.
Stopping Opioid Addiction At One Key Source: The Hospital
It’s a simple enough idea: Surgeons should give patients fewer pills after surgery — the time when many people are first introduced to what can be highly addictive painkillers.
Information Overload: Sifting Through Data to Identify Medication-Related Vulnerabilities
Data from the World Health Organization indicates that medication-related errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people each year in the United States alone.
ISMP Launches the First High-Alert Medication Safety Self-Assessment for Inpatient and Outpatient Facilities
ISMP will use the aggregate findings to plan additional educational curricula, tools, and resources to help healthcare practitioners enhance safety when using high-alert medications.
Vaccine Shortage Complicates Efforts To Quell Hepatitis A Outbreaks
The San Diego outbreak, and a number of others in California and across the United States, have generated a spike in demand for hepatitis A vaccine and put a squeeze on supplies, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Depressed Nurses Make More Medical Errors
Nurses in poorer health had an up to 71% higher likelihood of reporting medical errors than did her healthier peers.