The True Cost of the Medication Mistake: Creating an Environment that Limits Errors

http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/article/true-cost-medication-mistake-creating-environment-limits-errors

How do errors in medication distribution impact a hospital’s bottom line? Just a single medication error can cost a facility hundreds of thousands of dollars. On a grander scale, medical errors cost up to $1 trillion annually according to a report in the Journal of Health Care Finance.

More importantly, preventable medical errors impact lives. In fact, they are the third largest cause of death in the United States. The Journal of Patient Safety estimates between 210,000 and 400,000 people die each year in the U.S. from adverse effects of medical treatment in hospitals. This is surpassed only by heart disease and cancer.

This staggering figure was first brought to light by the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) study To Err Is Human. A follow-up report indicated that medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, causing up to 400,000 drug-related injuries in hospitals each year. That means a patient may be exposed to at least one preventable adverse drug event (ADE) each day. Errors occur during every step of the process but are most prevalent during prescription and administration.

How can designers aid hospitals in addressing the issue of medication errors? Creating spaces with improved point-of-care storage and distribution is one way to do just that. Medication storage and distribution at the point-of-care has been proven to reduce medication errors, theft and loss and, in turn, improve delivery accuracy.

Installing in-room or near-room, wall-mounted systems such as the WALLAroo® with ISONAS™ technology is one way hospitals are combatting never events and medication diversion. These secure systems allow medications, personal protection equipment, critical supplies, and patient data to be housed securely at the point of care.

One of the challenges of point-of-care storage has always been security. Now, with the advanced security of “Pure IP” access control technology, authorized users can open locked cabinets and other access points with a single swipe card. Access permissions are controlled through the facility’s existing credentialing system. The system offers real-time tracking of activity per cabinet and user for complete visibility, with ongoing history and audit reports to adhere to the chain of custody requirements of HIPAA. These systems can also include data encryption, with lockdown and emergency functions, and an anti-tamper alarm system.

The simplification of the clinical workflow can be the first step in creating an environment that actively thwarts medication errors.  With simple, secure, and fast access to medications at the point of care, ever-busy clinical teams can maintain their focus with individual patients without leaving the point of care.  Ultimately making the elimination of medication errors not only possible—but attainable.

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Guns kill people in the US because we pervert the Second Amendment

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/02/oregon-college-shooting-guns-kill-people-in-us-pervert-second-amendment?CMP=ema_565c

There seems to be a parallel between those who have lost loved ones to the consequences of undiagnosed/untreated mental health issues. This article is about the shooting in Oregon… and those who have lost loved ones and other groups start calling out for more “gun free zones”.. and restrict the sale of guns… which they believe that this will keep the guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

Like this young man, who was the center of this shooting.. he was not looking to rob someone or some other sort of personal gain..  This was a person with known mental issue and one of the things reported that he was “upset about” was that he didn’t have a GIRL FRIEND.

It is the same sorts of arguments used by those who have lost a loved one to the mental health issue of additive personality  and have OD’ed.  Ban the drugs, stop producing the drugs…

So that it never happens again.

Just how many different things could we “ban” so that no unnecessary deaths ever happen again.. ???

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74 overdoses in 72 hours: Laced heroin may be to blame

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-heroin-overdoses-met-20151002-story.html

Just imagine what would happen if those with the mental health disease of addiction, if they could legally purchase commercially available opiates. Other countries have tried this and drug overdose deaths have dramatically DECREASED… because many/most of these people are not interested in dying, just desperate to quiet the demons in their head and/or monkeys on their back. So they purchase unknown substances from whatever source they can find.  How much more is it costing our system to treat 74 overdoses in a hospital than providing these people with a “known product” ? Are our societal phobias adding to our overall healthcare system costs ?

By Friday afternoon, 14 people had been rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago in the previous 24 hours to be treated for heroin overdoses, some with the needles still stuck in their arm, according to hospital officials.

In all, nearly 75 people have overdosed in Chicago since Tuesday afternoon from dangerous batches of narcotics, possibly heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl, according to city health and fire officials. Police were investigating if at least one recent death was caused by a heroin overdose.

“We suspect what is happening is the same thing that happened in 2006 when people were getting heroin that was cut with fentanyl, which is a very strong narcotic,” said Diane Hincks, a registered nurse and emergency room director at Mount Sinai on the West Side. “That’s what we think is happening.”

By early Friday afternoon, emergency crews had responded to 74 cases over 72 hours, more than double the same three-day period last year, said Larry Langford, spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department.

Hincks said some of the 14 overdose victims treated at Mount Sinai had collapsed as soon as they injected themselves. The hospital typically sees two or three overdoses a day, she said.

Two of Mount Sinai’s patients were in intensive care, another was still undergoing treatment, seven had been discharged and a few more were still in the emergency room as of about 3 p.m, Hincks said.

Chicago police said the drugs were purchased primarily at two locations on the West Side, one of them in the North Lawndale community. A sample of heroin recovered by police may have contained fentanyl, authorities said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is working with Chicago police to try to find the source of the dangerous batches of drugs.

At City Council budget hearings Friday afternoon, Chief Mary Sheridan, head of the Fire Department’s emergency medical services division, said all the recent overdose victims were stabilized with a single dose of Narcan, a heroin antidote carried by Chicago paramedics, and then transported safely to hospitals. But fire officials said the victims required additional doses of Narcan after arriving at hospitals.

“They’re taking double and triple the doses of Narcan in order to bring them out of their stupor,” Hincks told the Tribune.

Paramedics and other Fire Department personnel were given extra Narcan for their medical runs, officials said.

Chicago police, meanwhile, are looking into whether a 49-year-old man who died of an apparent drug overdose in the West Side’s East Garfield Park neighborhood had ingested narcotics from one of the dangerous batches, according to law enforcement sources.

The victim was found dead in a third-floor apartment Thursday night in the 3300 block of West Ohio Street, police said. An autopsy on the victim Friday was inconclusive, pending toxicology studies that could take up to eight weeks to complete, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

The Chicago Recovery Alliance, which helps drug users, trains the public in overdose prevention, provides HIV testing and conducts needle exchanges, urged caution.

“The best thing would be to have (Narcan),” said Dan Bigg, the group’s director. “And watch each other’s backs.”

Fentanyl-laced heroin has been causing overdoses across the nation. The DEA issued a nationwide health alert in March.

Dr. Steven Aks, chief toxicologist at Stroger Hospital and an emergency physician, said fentanyl is used for especially painful surgical procedures.

The powerful synthetic painkiller adds a potent kick to heroin, making it attractive to suppliers seeking an edge with customers.

The last major outbreak of fentanyl-related deaths took place between 2005 and 2007, killing more than 1,000 people across the country. Dozens in the Chicago area died of overdoses, including from fentanyl mixed with other drugs.

Hincks recalled how busy Mount Sinai’s emergency room was for a few weeks in 2006, when she was a charge nurse, because of the fentanyl-laced heroin.

“I remember how crazy it was,” she said. “It got to the point it was just full. We had everyone lined up in the halls on carts. … It was very busy.”

Cristina Villarreal, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Public Health, said that by 8:30 a.m. Friday more than 20 people had been treated for heroin overdoses. Villarreal said the department was awaiting lab results to confirm if the heroin was laced with fentanyl.

“We are working closely to ensure that area hospitals are tracking individuals affected and are maintaining a necessary stock of medication supplies — including Narcan,” Villarreal said in an email.

John Callahan, coroner of Grundy County, said his office has seen three heroin-related deaths in the Morris and Coal City areas this year — but all of them came in August.

He said he had been contacted by the DEA about two weeks ago.

“They’re trying to trace back where this potent heroin came from,” Callahan said. “The way I understand it, there’s a bad batch.”

Heroin overdose deaths have been on the rise statewide since 2011, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. Last year, 633 heroin overdose deaths occurred in Illinois, up from 583 in 2013. In Cook County, heroin overdose deaths remained largely unchanged last year at 283, down eight from 2013.

A recent Roosevelt University report concluded that the Chicago area is racking up more heroin-related emergency room visits than any other metro area in the country. Compounding the problem was that state-funded drug treatment had dried up, the report found.

Illinois’ heroin crisis has drawn increasing attention from government officials in recent years, and lawmakers have proposed numerous measures aimed at attacking the problem.

Chicago Tribune’s John Byrne and The Washington Post contributed.

jgorner@tribpub.com

pnickeas@tribpub.com

rsobol@tribpub.com

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Feds, Pharmacies Grapple With Pain Pill Dilemma

http://health.wusf.usf.edu/post/feds-pharmacies-grapple-pain-pill-dilemma#stream/0

Susan Langston wiped away tears as she spoke of a 40-year-old woman who had struggled with cancer for a decade before a Fort Myers pharmacy refused to fill a prescription for pain medication.

The prescription was rejected because it was written by a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, a facility 100 miles away from the woman’s home and where she sought cancer treatment after her own doctors told her she was going to die.

But, according to the chain pharmacy’s policies, the prescription was flagged because it wasn’t ordered by the woman’s regular doctor, the woman traveled a long distance to obtain the prescription, and it came from South Florida, a part of the state once considered the pill-mill capital of the nation.

According to Langston, the pharmacist quit.

The cancer patient’s plight is one of many stories Langston has fielded in her job as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration diversion program manager in the Miami office.

“This girl is being labeled a drug seeker, a doctor shopper. She went to a different doctor. She got a different pain medicine. She drove a long distance, and she paid cash. But she also walked in there with a bald head to a pharmacist that she’s been going to for 10 years, who knows she’s none of those. And that’s awful. That’s not what we’re about. No one has ever gotten in trouble with the DEA in Florida from filling a cancer person’s prescription,” an emotional Langston said in an extended interview this week via Skype with The News Service of Florida.

Florida patients like the Fort Myers woman are caught in the crosshairs of a state and national crackdown on prescription pill abuse that’s morphed into a dreaded “pharmacy crawl” by people suffering from cancer, chronic pain and other illnesses but who can’t get their doctors’ orders for pain medications filled.

Pharmacists blame an overzealous Drug Enforcement Administration for the problem. Doctors — and the DEA — point the finger back at the pharmacists charged with filling prescriptions or at the corporations that have developed checklists to screen out dubious patients.

Meanwhile, some patients are checking into hospice care early — or even committing suicide — in search of relief.

The dilemma has reached such proportions that the Florida Board of Pharmacy is considering changes to its rules regulating the dispensing of pain medications, switching from a focus on detecting fraudulent prescriptions to ensuring that legitimate patients get the drugs they need.

But most of the players involved in Florida say the proposed rule change, scheduled for a vote Monday by a pharmacy board committee, alone will likely do little to alleviate the situation.

The rule change won’t have any effect on the policies of corporations like Walgreens and CVS, or on the policies of distributors who control the supply of drugs that flow into pharmacies.

“So it doesn’t really matter what the state of Florida says, or the DEA, or anyone else, as long as the corporation says, this is what we think,” Langston said.

Pharmacy chains won’t reveal their checklists for which patients pass muster.

When asked whether CVS has such a policy, company spokesman Mike DeAngelis referred to guidelines laid out in an industry paper released this summer, endorsed by more than a dozen associations representing doctors’ groups, chain pharmacies, pharmacists and distributors.

The “Stakeholders Challenges and Red Flag Warning Signs Related to Prescribing and Dispensing Controlled Substances” includes myriad items related to how people behave when they present prescriptions to be filled, as well as to the prescriptions themselves. One trigger is whether the patient “presents prescriptions for highly abused controlled substances,” something common for patients with chronic pain or cancer.

“Our corporate office will look into any complaint we receive from a patient who believes they are being denied a legitimate prescription, but our pharmacists do a great job in using their professional judgment to determine whether a controlled substance prescription was issued for a legitimate purpose,” DeAngelis said in an email.

One major concern for pharmacists involves an unwritten “30 percent rule” — the amount of pharmacies’ prescription drug orders made up of controlled substances — that many believe triggers scrutiny by the DEA.

But Langston denied that such a rule exists.

“There’s no number, officially, that triggers anything,” she said.

DEA probes are sparked by a “totality of circumstances,” Langston said.

“Volume, amount ordered, amount received by a pharmacy is only one of those circumstances. But we know that volume alone does not always tell the whole story. We’re very aware of that,” she said.

Langston is frustrated at the blame being placed on her agency.

“We want all pharmacists, patients, doctors and the public to know that the DEA does not want to interfere in any way with legitimate medical care. That would be morally wrong. We want legitimate patients to get the help and the medications that they need,” she said.

But a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office this summer, based on surveys with industry professionals and DEA officials, found that over half of DEA registrants — pharmacies and distributors — have changed certain business practices based on the result of the agency’s enforcement actions.

More than half of distributors have placed stricter limits on quantities of controlled substances that their customers can order, the report found.

And more than half of individual pharmacies and chain pharmacies reported that the stricter limits “have limited to a ‘great’ or ‘moderate extent,’ their ability to supply drugs to those with legitimate needs,” according to the report.

In contrast, DEA officials “said they generally did not believe that enforcement actions have negatively affected access.”

Cardinal Health, one of the country’s largest distributors, referred questions about its policies to June testimony from one of the company’s top executives at the Florida Board of Pharmacy’s Controlled Substances Standards Committee.

The DEA has instructed distributors not to ship suspicious orders to pharmacies and to report them to the federal authorities. Failure to do so could result in the loss of the distributors’ DEA registration, Gary Cacciatore, the company’s vice president of regulatory affairs, told the committee.

Cardinal Health has placed “individualized limits on each controlled substance drug family,” imposed limits on particular drug strengths within a drug family and scrutinizes the drugs that the DEA has identified as being widely diverted, such as oxycodone and alprazolam, he said.

“These factors and many others play a role in our decisions to service customers and in setting limits on the distributions of controlled substances,” Cacciatore said.

The DEA’s actions may have had an even greater impact on the behavior of distributors and pharmacies in Florida.

In a 2012 settlement agreement, Cardinal Health was banned from shipping and selling narcotics from its Lakeland facility for two years.

Walgreens agreed to a historic $80 million penalty in 2013 related to dispensing of highly addictive narcotics.

And, earlier this year, CVS agreed to pay $22 million in fines after DEA investigators revealed that employees at two of the chain’s Sanford stores were doling out controlled substances without legitimate prescriptions. Three years ago, federal authorities stopped the stores from dispensing a number of highly addictive controlled substances, including oxycodone.

According to the Government Accountability Office report, the number of DEA complaint investigations jumped nationally from 907 in 2009 to 1,428 in 2013, as state and federal authorities grappled with a prescription drug-abuse epidemic that earned Florida the dubious distinction as the epicenter of the problem.

At the urging of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2011, state lawmakers imposed strict regulations on doctors and pharmacies about dispensing highly addictive pain medications. The effort was aimed at shutting down rogue clinics that had popped up in areas like South Florida and had drawn addicts and traffickers from states hundreds of miles away.

The law barred doctors from dispensing powerful narcotics from their offices, and shuttered almost all of the pill mills where doctors wrote hundreds of prescriptions for pain medications each day.

But the pill-mill problem hasn’t gone away, Langston said.

“Those same lines of people — those people shooting up in their cars, urinating, buying and selling urine, buying and selling pills — they ended up at pharmacies,” she said.

While most pharmacists turned those patients away, “we had a lot of bad pharmacists that turned a blind eye,” Langston said.

“When you have people shooting up in your parking lot, there’s a problem. These aren’t cancer patients or surgery patients doing this. And it’s awful that people like that are having to suffer,” she said.

Langston said she was in a pharmacy earlier this month when a homeless man paid $800 in cash for powerful narcotics. That pharmacy is now under investigation, she said. She watched as the man placed the $20 bills into stacks on the counter.

“It was really sad. I couldn’t believe that pharmacist took that money,” she said.

The DEA has no control over pharmacies’ pricing of drugs, Langston said.

“They can charge what they want. That’s not against the law. But when a pharmacist will do that, it’s very telling. Very telling,” she said.

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https://youtu.be/v0SmL8D2wYY

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Floyd Memorial installs fingerprint scanners

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/indiana/2014/09/26/floyd-memorial-installs-fingerprint-scanners/16211187/

While this is the “glazed over” story about why our local hospital has implemented this digital finger print reader attached to their medical record system.  This week I was in the hospital for some out pt lab tests and got to talking to the lab tech about this system. It would seem that the larger motivation for the hospital to implement this system… is their experience of multiple people showing up requesting services … many using the same set of medical insurance cards/coverage. Think insurance fraud.  In case you haven’t heard.. all sorts of database hacks have happened in large hospital systems, health insurance companies, Federal Office of Personnel Management and how many others that have yet to be uncovered happening or admitted that it has happened.

Maybe this data hacks can help explain:

http://www.nola.com/crime/baton-rouge/index.ssf/2015/05/counterfeit_prescription_drug.html

http://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/indictment-charges-9-individuals-obtaining-oxycodone-fraudulent-prescription-scheme

should we be using such a system with the various state PMP’s or if ignoring such a system to prevent diversion… have a different meaning ?

Floyd Memorial Hospital hopes a tiny, glowing blue box could help improve patient care and prevent medical identity theft.

The box is part of the hospital’s new partnership with technology company CrossChx, which uses unique points of patients’ fingerprints to generate a code linking them to their medical information.

“I think it’s more secure,” said Tammy Utz, whose fingerprint flashed on a computer monitor recently when she registered for pre-operative testing. She’s never worried much about her own medical identity being stolen, but knows “there’s been a lot of identity theft issues.”

In 2013, just over 1.8 million American adults were victims of medical identity theft — when a fraudster uses someone else’s personal information to access medical benefits — at a total estimated out-of-pocket cost of more than $12 billion in related expenses, according to a report from the Ponemon Institute.

“People don’t realize (medical identity theft) is prevalent,” hospital spokeswoman Angie Rose said. “We’re trying to prevent that from happening.”

Floyd Memorial also hopes the CrossChx system will cut down on its approximately 100 monthly duplicate patient records, usually created when a patient registers under a middle name or nickname — say “Mike” instead of “Michael.”

With the associated administrative and other expenses estimated at $50 per pair, according to a 2012 American Medical Informatics Association article, “Duplicate Patient Records – Implication for Missed Laboratory Results,” duplicate records can be costly for hospitals.

But they could also be costly for patients.

If Michael’s record shows he has an allergy but Mike’s doesn’t, an unaware healthcare provider could give him a dangerous medication, Manager of Patient Access Services Laurie Scarff said. “If we don’t put it together that that’s the same person, we might not be aware of that allergy.”

Floyd Memorial uses patients’ social security numbers and date of birth to find and combine duplicate records at registration, Scarff said. But CrossChx will help ensure they’re not created in the first place, since “your finger is your finger” — regardless of the name used.

The first time they check in, patients are asked to scan their right index finger five times so the system can lock in their assigned code. On later visits, they can register with one scan. The fingerprints themselves are not stored, Rose said.

Floyd Memorial “encourages, but doesn’t require” patients to use the system, Scarff said. She said that in the first week, more than 98 percent of patients asked agreed to do so.

Reporter Baylee Pulliam can be reached at (812) 298-5601 or on Twitter at @BayleePulliam.

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Overdose deaths reach ‘epidemic proportions’ in Tennessee

State: 1,263 Tennesseans died from opioid overdoses in 2014

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/sep/28/state-1263-tennesseans-died-opioid-overdoses-2014/327649/

Tennessee has 6.50 million residents out of the 320 million in the entire country… there are abt 550,000 deaths from use/abuse alcohol & tobacco.. using national percentages .. that would suggest that annually TENNESSEE would have abt 11,500 residents die from those two drugs. So the NINE TIMES DEATHS from the use/abuse of alcohol & tobacco … those lives are less important than those who died from untreated mental health issue of addictive personality ?

NASHVILLE — Statistics from the Tennessee Department of Health revealed that 1,263 Tennesseans died in 2014 from opioid overdoses despite measures designed to stop the addiction.

In 2014, the state saw 97 more deaths caused by opioid overdoses than in 2013, The Tennessean reported. According to the report, more people died from opioid overdose in 2014 than from car accidents or by gunshots.

David Reagan, the health department’s chief medical officer, said the highest frequency of overdose deaths are found in men and women ages 45 to 55.

The newspaper reports opioids are found in prescription painkillers such as Hydrocodone and Oxycodone, which are easily attainable illegally. Hydrocodone, according to the report, can cost between $5 to $7 per pill while one pill of Oxycodone ranges from $30 to $40.

Pills tile

Dr. Omar Hamada of Maury Regional Medical Center says two to three people come into the emergency room each week with an overdose that requires medical intervention.

Reagan said most people who become addicted to opioids don’t do it with the intention of becoming addicted.

“They never intended for that one incident to end up in dependency and addiction,” Reagan said. “This wasn’t their idea.”

To combat the high death rates, several legislative measures designed to stem addiction have been passed. In 2012, the state began new oversight over pain management clinics and started to expand the information tracked by its controlled substance database, the paper reports.

Starting in July, Tennessee will require chief medical officers of pain clinics to be pain specialists.

State Sen. Ken Yager, who sponsored the 2012 legislation, wants to see some funding for addiction in the state’s next budget.

“It is an epidemic of biblical proportions that we need to fight on every front,” Yager said.

 

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After surviving years of marginalization as a chronic pain patient, I decided that self-advocacy was no longer a choice. I live in a state which has some of (if not THE) strictest pain medicine laws that exist. When I was unethically put on a “Non Narcotic Treatment” status by my pain clinic, it became glaringly clear how these new laws were going to directly affect me. I reached out to any and everyone I could, trying to figure out why (despite having had to be hospitalized for “Malignant Hypertension Due to Pain”) I could not get pain care. My own primary care physician told me if I wanted to get “the pain care I needed,” I would “need to move to another state. You will NOT get it here,” he said emphatically. Punctuating that statement with the suicide of one of our pain doctors as an example of the distress that Kentucky doctors are facing when it comes to pain medicine. Even if you don’t live in Kentucky, don’t be fooled…they’re coming for your state, too.

I found Sheila Purcell, Founder of Kentucky Pain Care Action Network, who told me the realities for pain patients in Kentucky, and I was at a loss. I began advocating. Eventually, after much trial and error, I found a terrific pain doctor…in another state. I now have to have my husband drive me four hours each way, once a month. If it meant being treated by a knowledgeable, compassionate doctor, who treated me with respect, I decided it was worth it. I began talking to him about the dire conditions in my state, and how many people I heard from as a pain advocate on a daily basis.

My pain doctor LISTENED. As he starts his new chain of clinics, and after getting to know me better, and reading some of my articles, he asked me to be on his board, as a Patient Advocate. In the process, I began pushing him to open a clinic in Kentucky. After hearing me beg for months, he went ahead and got licensed in Kentucky (as well as six other states). As an effort to influence his decision to come to Kentucky, I started a petition https://www.change.org/p/kentucky-board-of-medical-licensure-kentucky-general-assembly-kentucky-state-senate-kentucky-state-house-kentucky-governor-bring-elite-medical-pain-management-clinic-to-kentucky-pain-care-for-kentucky-s-suffering?recruiter=14188163&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

In addition, as an advocate with Kentucky Pain Care Action Network, I have also started a petition to amend our legislation, which is denying legitimate pain patients the basic human right to proper pain care. https://www.change.org/p/gregory-stumbo-jack-conway-kentucky-state-house-kentucky-medical-association-demand-adequate-pain-care-as-a-human-right-for-kentuckians/u/13551000

Thanks to Steve Ariens, I’ve been able to share this information with his readers, who may not live in Kentucky, but who need to support these movements either way, because the laws change by other state’s example, and we are all in this together. Also, you may need a compassionate, knowledgeable pain doctor in your state, and my doctor just might be coming your way…if you show that you are interested. We pain patients need to show the government and doctors that we will not just sit down and shut up. That we WILL be heard. Please join me in taking the first steps to doing so.

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I recently was having a phone conversation with a friend and reader of my blog. The question came up … which actually came via another reader of my blog. That the “direction” of my blog has change over the years.  My blog started its FOURTH YEAR this past June, and my readership/page views continue to grow, so there seems to be a growing interest in what I put on the blog.

Originally, the blog was to focus on how our healthcare system is harming and killing us. With all too much of the harm that our healthcare system does to pts, settled with confidentially/non disclosure agreements… Much of it is buried in corporate archives, probably never seeing the light of day.

Few pts ever heard about the 100,000 pts that die of hospital/nursing home acquired infections. Certain groups use the number that 44 K die of drug overdoses, but when you dig down into the weeds… abt half of those deaths are from OTC medications and only about 16 K deaths are from Rx opiates and as a society, we don’t track .. how many – out of those 16 K deaths — are suicides.. not a TRUE accidental overdose… of that mentally ill person that was seeking out that “higher … high”…

So… my blog has expanded to point out and discuss… how people are being abused, harmed, killed by those in authority over them in some fashion. Doesn’t matter if the abuse is coming from legislators, judicial system, healthcare system or others that have some sort of ability/authority over others and use that to impose their will – legally/illegally – on others

I try to avoid posting about elected officials, but those agencies within the bureaucracy is – as far as I am concerned – fair game… as is corporate America. If a pt sends me audio/video about being denied care by a individual healthcare professional… I will post it..  If you think that you are protected by your state’s two party recording law, those laws were written referencing “private conversation” and was focused on recording telephone conversations.  IMO, it is a extreme push to believe that the conversation at the pharmacy Rx dept counter is “private”.. thus these laws are most likely not applicable nor enforceable.

I can’t remember deleting a comment from people who take an opposing stance on what I have posted… my blog doesn’t even require someone making a comment to give a name and email. Unlike me, there are a lot of people who don’t have the conviction of their beliefs to put their name/email on their comments.

I am sure that the number of comments would drop if I turned on the name/email requirement to make a comment, but then my regular readers would not get to see/read just what some people really think about what is going on in our healthcare system… and how they defend their actions and the reasons for their actions.

I welcome anyone who wishes to submit a guest post from both healthcare professionals and pts…

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September 30, 2015 Advocates in Florida, The next Controlled Substances Standards Committee Meeting will take place on October 5, 2015 at 2pm at the Tampa Marriott Westshore, 1001 N. Westshore Blvd., Tampa, Florida 33607. See the agenda and other details on the Florida Board of Pharmacy’s website. We hope you’ll attend this meeting to stay abreast of how Florida is addressing the challenges of access for people with legitimate medical problems who need to fill their medications for pain management. For background, you can read the written testimony that the American Academy of Pain Management provided at the June Controlled Substances Standards Committee Meeting in Orlando. We’d love to know if you are able to make it to this meeting in Tampa. In the meantime, we’re here to answer any questions you may have. Sincerely, Amy Goldstein, Director, State Pain Policy Advocacy Network, American Academy of Pain Management Katie Duensing, Researcher and Policy Analyst, American Academy of Pain Management follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | follow on LinkedIn Our mailing address is: 975 Morning Star Drive, Suite A Sonora, CA 95370 209 533-9744

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