Pennsylvania has produced a new series of addiction treatment guidelines, changing the way in which doctors would prescribe opioid medication in emergency room situations. This new advice works alongside a new state law which limits opioid prescription for people discharged from the emergency room to a 7-day supply only, and now recommends other treatments prior to offering opioid treatments.
This comes in the midst of the national opioid crisis. Speaking about the change was Secretary of Health for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Rachel Levine: “These guidelines are intended to improve patient outcomes, and to supplement, but not replace the individual physician and provider’s clinical judgment,”
“We have absolutely learned in this crisis that it’s impossible for someone to get into treatment and then recovery if they’re dead,”
A change in guideline
Guidelines also state that there should be a readiness to treat patients who are already addicted with medication that can reduce painful, sever withdrawal symptoms. It could also help to stop the use of illegal opioids. Presently not all emergency rooms will regularly prescribe medications when people show up after a drug overdose. This may be about to change. The Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Jeanmarie Parrone, said: “Everyone agreed that this was the responsibility of every state emergency department,
“All hospital emergency rooms encounter at least some patients struggling with addiction, ranging from people looking for help with their addiction to those needing treatment for ailments related to injection drug use. Many of them don’t go to the doctor otherwise,
“So it’s really our only touch with these patients, and if we can’t be treatment ready then, then we really can’t help people,”
For a doctor to be able to sign off on offering out such treatment, they will need to undergo a special training program to get their Federal Government waiver. This would allow them to offer helpful and powerful treatments to those with addiction issues, including buprenorphine. While this requirement has meant that there was a slow-down in getting treatment started in many ways, many people within the Pennsylvania Health System are getting time off to complete their eight-hour course, and paying their fees on their behalf.
This has seen numbers of qualified experts move from around half a dozen capable to prescribe buprenorphine to around 50. This means that there is a significant change in the way that people are dealing with their requirements and treatments. In an era where something has to be done to try and stem the flow of damage being done, this is a very important step in the right direction.