More Ohio newborns suffer from mother’s addiction

The number of Ohio babies who come into the world sick and craving drugs continues to soar.

New state reports show that the rate of neonatal abstinence syndrome — the medical term for withdrawal symptoms suffered by newborns — jumped to 159 per 10,000 live births in 2015.

That’s more than eight times the rate a decade earlier, in 2005, when there were just 19 such hospitalizations for every 10,000 live births.

“Given the way that the other numbers in the state are going, unfortunately, they were what I expected. I expected the NAS rate to go up,” said Rick Massatti of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Ohio is awash in drug abuse and addiction, at times leading the nation in deaths from heroin and synthetic-opioid overdoses. And women who become pregnant while using drugs can double the harm if they don’t get help quickly.

But awareness and availability of treatment continue to lag.

“As a community, we are failing these moms by not having adequate treatment slots,” said Dr. Barry Halpern, an OhioHealth neonatologist who has helped lead local efforts to care for pregnant drug users and their infants.

– Rita Price
The Columbus Dispatch

View Original Article

Follow Prescription Advisory

Follows

Facebook
0 Followers

Recommendations for full use of PDMP include:

PDMPs can be effective clinical tools in medication management involving controlled substances.

PDMPs should be available for clinicians across state boundaries.

Every prescribing clinician should be familiar with the process of accessing and utilizing information from PDMP’s so that they can incorporate this information in their practices.

American Society of Addiction Medicine

You’re not only reducing the supply [of pain medications] for those who use them inappropriately, but also for those in need.

Bob Tillman – Director of Policy and AdvocacyAmerican Academy of Pain Management

The use of PDMPs…is helping to reduce misuse of prescription drugs.

PDMP Center of Excellence at Brandeis University, February 2014 Briefing

Whenever possible, orthopaedic surgeons should request and review old medical records and speak with the patient’s primary physician about past medication problems. Currently, states have Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs designed to assist law enforcement in the identification of doctor shoppers; these data are also accessible to physicians.

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Now, March 2014

Prescribing or dispensing to an abuser, diverter, misuser or ‘doctor shopper’ puts the provider, their practice and or institution, as well as the patients at high risk.

Although relieving pain and reducing suffering are primary emergency physician responsibilities, there is a concurrent duty to limit the personal and societal harm that can result from prescription drug misuse and abuse.

ACEP Annals of Emergency Medicine 525

In 2012, both New York and Tennessee required prescribers to check their state’s PDMP before prescribing painkillers.

The results one year later:
New York realized a 75% drop and Tennessee a 36% drop in patients who were seeing multiple prescribers to obtain the same drugs.

PDMP [National] Center of Excellence at Brandeis U, 2014

Attention to patterns of prescription requests and the prescribing of opioids as part of an ongoing relationship between a patient and a healthcare provider can decrease the risk of diversion. Periodic review of state PDMP, where available, is also a useful tool to monitor compliance. Evaluation should initially include…a drug history… Documentation is essential.

February 2013 American Academy of Pain Medicine

When a clinician is prescribing a controlled substance, readily available information about the drugs that a patient is receiving from other providers can be a critically important component of the decision-making process…Increasingly, these [PDMP] programs have evolved into a useful tool for the clinician who must incorporate careful risk management into the prescribing of opioid analgesics or any other controlled substance.

Increasingly, these programs have evolved into a useful tool for the clinician who must incorporate careful risk management into the prescribing of opioid analgesics or any other controlled substance Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Serve a Vital Clinical Need.

Editorial Pain Medicine, The American Academy of Pain Medicine; 2011;12:845

Doctors (and other clinicians) need to know what prescriptions have been given to their patients by other practitioners. This information should be included in the patients’ electronic health care records accessible through a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) that provides immediate information.

Presentation by the Dir., Div. of Epidemiology NIH, National Institute on Drug Abuse, May 2013

The CDC advises providers to use PDMPs… States should consider ways to increase their use … available real-time, and alerts to prescribers.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Recommendations for full use of PDMP include:

PDMPs can be effective clinical tools in medication management involving controlled substances.

PDMPs should be available for clinicians across state boundaries.

Every prescribing clinician should be familiar with the process of accessing and utilizing information from PDMP’s so that they can incorporate this information in their practices.

American Society of Addiction Medicine

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are now active in most states to assist clinicians in identifying potential controlled drug misuse, diversion, or excessive prescribing. Little is still known about the ways in which they are incorporated into workflow and clinical decision making, what barriers continue to exist, and how clinicians are sharing PDMP results with their patients.

Design
Qualitative data were collected through online focus groups and telephone interviews.

Setting
Clinicians from pain management, emergency and family medicine, psychiatry/behavioral health, rehabilitation medicine, internal medicine and dentistry participated.

Patients
Thirty-five clinicians from nine states participated.

Methods
We conducted two online focus groups and seven telephone interviews. A multidisciplinary team then used a grounded theory approach coupled with an immersion–crystallization strategy for identifying key themes in the resulting transcripts.

Results
Some participants, mainly from pain clinics, reported checking the PDMP with every patient, every time. Others checked only for new patients, for new opioid prescriptions, or for patients for whom they suspected abuse. Participants described varied approaches to sharing PDMP information with patients, including openly discussing potential addiction or safety concerns, avoiding discussion altogether, and approaching discussion confrontationally. Participants described patient anger or denial as a common response and noted the role of patient satisfaction surveys as an influence on prescribing.

Conclusion
Routines for accessing PDMP data and how clinicians respond to it vary widely. As PDMP use becomes more widespread, it will be important to understand what approaches are most effective for identifying and addressing unsafe medication use.

Pain Medicine, Volume 15, Issue 7, July 2014

When a clinician is prescribing a controlled substance, readily available information about the drugs that a patient is receiving from other providers can be a critically important component of the decision-making process…Increasingly, these [PDMP] programs have evolved into a useful tool for the clinician who must incorporate careful risk management into the prescribing of opioid analgesics or any other controlled substance.

Increasingly, these programs have evolved into a useful tool for the clinician who must incorporate careful risk management into the prescribing of opioid analgesics or any other controlled substance Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Serve a Vital Clinical Need.

Editorial Pain Medicine, The American Academy of Pain Medicine; 2011;12:845

Although relieving pain and reducing suffering are primary emergency physician responsibilities, there is a concurrent duty to limit the personal and societal harm that can result from prescription drug misuse and abuse.

Pain Management / Clinical PolicyACEP Annals of Emergency Medicine 525, October 2012

In 2012, both New York and Tennessee required prescribers to check their state’s PDMP before prescribing painkillers.

The results one year later:
New York realized a 75% drop and Tennessee a 36% drop in patients who were seeing multiple prescribers to obtain the same drugs.

PDMP [National] Center of Excellence at Brandeis U, 2014

Prescribing or dispensing to an abuser, diverter, misuser or ‘doctor shopper’ puts the provider, their practice and or institution, as well as the patients at high risk.

Although relieving pain and reducing suffering are primary emergency physician responsibilities, there is a concurrent duty to limit the personal and societal harm that can result from prescription drug misuse and abuse.

ACEP Annals of Emergency Medicine 525

Always check the medical record… and a prescription drug monitoring database.

Federation of State Medical Boards

An improved PDMP … with accurate and timely data analysis should be regarded as the cornerstone of our collective efforts to address prescription drug abuse.

Department of Public Health

Use of a state PDMP may help identify patients who are at high risk for diversion or doctor shopping… To quantify the effects of PDMPs, studies were conducted of ED providers who cared for adult patients with pain. Of the patients with complete data in one study, information from the state’s PDMP System altered prescribing practice in 41%.

ACEP - Annals of Emergency Medicine - 525

The CDC advises providers to use PDMPs… States should consider ways to increase their use … available real-time, and alerts to prescribers.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention

David Stengle

David is Prescription Advisory’s Chief Marketing Officer. Software startups are his passion.

He also serves as the Director of Startup Grind Princeton and a mentor for the Princeton University eLab.

More Ohio newborns suffer from mother’s addiction

Follow Prescription Advisory

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Request a PastRx Demo

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Contact PastRx

Thank you! A Prescription Advisory representative will contact you shortly.