Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Daily Lobo The Independent Voice of UNM since 1895
Latest Issue
Read our print edition on Issuu

New efforts implemented to combat opioid abuse

The federal Indian Health Services program recently announced a new policy to be implemented when prescribing opioids in IHS-operated facilities.

IHS Principal Deputy Director Mary Smith said this involves doctors and other medical practitioners checking State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program databases before prescribing, and even dispensing, opioids for pain treatment lasting longer than a week.

Smith said the move is one of the first such actions by a federal agency involved in direct medical care. This database must also be checked periodically during chronic pain treatment.

PDMPs are given special access to collect, monitor and analyze electronically transmitted data regarding the prescription of pain killers, according to the PDMP website. These databases are managed under “the auspices of a state, district, commonwealth or territory of the United States.”

According to the website, PDMPs are only available to appropriate entities that have been authorized by state law to have such access. This includes “health care practitioners, pharmacists, regulatory boards and law enforcement agencies.”

PDMPs can only monitor specific controlled substances, as per state law. Most often these include narcotics such as hydrocodone, tranquilizers and stimulants.

UNM Pain Center Director Joanna Katzman is a leading expert on IHS training and studies the impacts of the opioid abuse plaguing many Americans.

“Chronic pain - like headaches, back and joint pain, and fibromyalgia - affects an estimated 100 million Americans at a cost of up to $635 billion annually,” Katzman said.

She said using prescription pain killers to treat these chronic pains is creating an even bigger problem in abuse and overdose, most prominently among the Native American population.

Some chronic opioid abusers may jump from doctor to doctor to obtain more prescriptions, Katzman said, and PDMPs bring awareness to this cloak-and-dagger tactic.

“The IHS, along with many states across the country, have new Prescription Drug Monitoring Laws,” she said. “If clinicians with prescriptive authority use the PDMP as a part of their comprehensive workup to care for patients who may need opioids or other controlled substances, then the PDMP can help the clinician understand if the patient is using his/her medications responsibly, or might be doctor-shopping or misusing the medication.”

Although general prescription abuse statistics are high, Katzman said they continue to escalate among the Native American population.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Subscribe

“While an estimated 4.2 percent of Americans 12 years and older misuse hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine, codeine, and other powerful pain killers, nearly seven percent of the American Indian population misuses them,” she said. “So, if clinicians are educated about medication misuse, and also use the PDMP, then the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities might experience a reduction in medication misuse and possible unintentional overdose death.”

This is just one of several recent actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to address the rising national opioid abuse epidemic, Katzman said. However, these changes are not only affecting IHS.

“It is not being done only for the IHS,” she said. “49 states (all except Missouri) are now using the PDMP. Many of these states have mandated PDMP rules requiring clinicians to use the PDMP for patients with chronic non-cancer pain.”

Efforts to end opioid abuse are spreading across the country, but training must come first, Katzman said.

“Locally and nationally, all Bureau of Indian Affairs police officers are being trained to use naloxone, which is the antidote for opioid overdose. So in rural America, local law enforcement will be able to save lives of these patients with an accidental opioid overdose,” she said.

Health providers are also being educated on naloxone, an opioid overdose-reversing drug, Katzman said. Naloxone can block or reverse the negative effects of opioid medication, such as drowsiness, slowed breathing, or even loss of consciousness.

“Naloxone is also in the formulary of every IHS hospital, and clinicians in the IHS are given five hours of mandatory education, which teaches about the importance of the PDMP, naloxone and best practices chronic pain management,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is also currently funding and conducting reports on opioid research.

“It is a public health crisis impacting the nation’s population more than diabetes, cancer and heart disease combined,” Katzman said.

Comments
Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2024 The Daily Lobo