The health care market today is suffering a great loss because of the patient’s addiction to the opioids. Opioids are compounds which have psychological impact similar to that of the opium. Once habituated, it can be very difficult to get rid of it. According to study, one out four patients who receive opioids from the primary care doctors’ care is getting addicted to it.
In a 15 years study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it has been found that 165,000 Americans had a fatal death because of in-take of harmful painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin in the year 2014. Mostly the patients taking in these drugs are unknown to the harmful effects caused by it and even have no idea of alternative solutions to the pain.
Taking into consideration all these, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and CDC have released a paper to help both patients and doctors regarding the harmful effects of opioids, alternatives for it to be used. Doctors are told to careful before prescribing the opioids to the patients.
What’s shocking is that every day 1,000 patients are admitted in the hospital for wrong usage of the prescribed painkillers. In the paper, the AHA-CDC has given various methods through which the providers can stop the excess usage of opioids. It could be through online patient portals, through the health care’s Facebook or Twitter page to name a few.
So in order to reduce the intake of opioids, AHA-CDC after a dialogue with hospitals has come up with a few key points. Those are:
- Having an entire knowledge about the patient medical history
- Giving treatment and medical appointment for patients with substance abuse
- See to it that patients with substance abuse are discharged appropriately
- Provide alternatives for pain
- Persons with drug abuse to be shifted to the emergency ward and keep a tab on their prescription
- Protecting prescription opioids against divergence.
