Editor's Note The opioid epidemic has expanded the pool of overdose-death donors (ODDs) for heart transplantation. Even though ODDs have higher rates of hepatitis C, cardiac allograft quality indices are favorable, and recipient outcomes are similar to those with non-ODD hearts, this study finds. Of 15,904 heart transplant donors analyzed,…

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Nearly 40 “awareness” or prevention and education wellness initiatives are listed for the month of May—among them, National Nurses Week, World Hand Hygiene Day, and Mental Health Month. Mental health caught my eye because it was a featured topic at the World Healthcare Congress in Washington, DC, where a panel…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on April 17 that the April issue of Quick Safety focuses on drug diversion and examines patterns and trends that could indicate drug diversion. It also offers safety actions organizations can take and describes how to take the mistakes other hospitals have made and…

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Editor's Note Long-term opioid use among family members was associated with persistent postoperative opioid use in opioid-naïve adolescents and young adults and should be screened for preoperatively, this study finds. Of 346,251 opioid-naïve patients aged 13 to 21 years having common surgical and dental procedures, persistent opioid use occurred in…

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Postoperative pain management has always been a major focus of patient care. However, the opioid crisis is increasing the challenges healthcare leaders face because of the call for a national change in modalities of pain management. Regulatory bodies, specifically, are executing control to confront the opioid epidemic head on, making…

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What is the current state of marijuana research? Russell: Marijuana research is unlike any other drug research. Researchers have to jump through a lot of hoops with the federal government to study it. As a result, people are using marijuana before there is enough science to prove safety and efficacy.…

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Editor's Note In this study, patients in teaching hospitals in Michigan received significantly larger postoperative opioid prescriptions and had higher rates of high-risk prescribing compared with nonteaching hospitals in the state. The amount of opioid prescribed in initial opioid prescriptions varied 4.7-fold across hospitals, from 130 to 616 oral morphine…

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Editor's Note Despite concerns about addiction and side effects of opioids, patients still expect them to be prescribed and believe them to be the most effective for postoperative pain relief, finds this study presented October 13 at the Anesthesiology 2018 annual meeting in San Francisco. Researchers gave a 13-question survey…

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Editor's Note Interventions at the physician or organizational level (eg, workflow changes) were found to be better tools for creating change in postoperative opioid prescribing than interventions at the patient level (eg, patient education), in this review. This analysis of eight studies published after 2000 that included 2,272 patients found…

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Editor's Note Preliminary data, reported August 15, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that drug overdose mortality in the US hit record high levels last year, increasing to more than 72,000 deaths. The increase in mortality was driven mainly by fatalities involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.…

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