Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 1)

© Copyright AAMI 2015. Single user license only. Copying, networking, and distribution prohibited. Features Saving Lives, Saving Families Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids Jill Williams About the Author Jill Schlabig Williams is a freelance writer based in Kentucky. E-mail: jill. williams@me.com A National Effort The National Coalition to Promote Continuous Monitoring of Patients on Opioids is a new initiative aimed at making the business case for why such monitoring is the right thing to do. Organized by the AAMI Foundation's Healthcare Technology Safety Institute, the coalition seeks to build on the work of many groups and stakeholders who have long made the case that patient safety demands continuous monitoring. As documented in medical literature and through the mass media over the past decade, patients have been harmed or even died in their hospital beds due to undetected respiratory depression after receiving opioids for pain management. Yet, still today, some healthcare providers-following the standard of practice for their institution-miss the signs of respiratory depression. Their patients suffer and sometimes die and the patients' families are left distraught, wondering how such a thing could happen. Again. Here are a few of their stories. Lewis Blackman: Chest Surgery Risk Factors: None For details on the coalition's work, please go to www.aami. org/htsi/opioids/index.html. Helen Haskell's son Lewis Blackman was a bright, active, healthy 15-year-old in 40 November 2000 when his parents brought him to a hospital in Charleston, SC, for an elective medical procedure. He was undergoing surgery to correct a congenital defect of the chest called pectus excavatum, a sunken breastbone. The procedure involved a surgeon inserting a bar into his chest to place upward pressure on the sternum. He was placed on a heavy narcotic pain regimen, with high doses of hydrocodone in an epidural plus adjunct injections of Toradol to control his pain. The surgery went well. Lewis was initially monitored with pulse oximetry, but his saturation levels kept dropping below 85% and the machine repeatedly alarmed. Nurses turned off the monitor. On the third day after surgery, Lewis developed a sudden intense pain in his stomach. Nurses assumed that it was an ileus, an intestinal blockage, and Lewis's epidural narcotics were stopped. Ultimately, he went into cardiac arrest and died. Autopsy revealed a large perforated ulcer of a type usually associated with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID) overdose. The ulcer had penetrated an underlying artery and Lewis had lost 2.8 liters of blood and stomach contents into his abdominal cavity. "Losing Lewis was devastating," says Haskell. "We entered the hospital with two children and came out with one. Our son had slowly died from a severe medication reaction while his nurses and residents seemed Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology January/February 2015 http://www.aami.org/htsi/opioids/index.html http://www.aami.org/htsi/opioids/index.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids

Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids

Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 1)
Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 2)
Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 3)
Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 4)
Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 5)
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