Saving Lives, Saving Families: Continuous Monitoring For Patients on Opioids - (Page 1)
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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)
https://www.nxtbook.com/allen/bmit/january-february-2015-40
https://www.nxtbook.com/allen/bmit/november-december-2013-467
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