HCA Healthcare Hosts Second Annual “Crush the Crisis” National Opioid Take Back Day
October 21 2020 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
HCA Healthcare, one of the nation’s leading healthcare
providers, today announced its second annual national “Crush the
Crisis” event to raise awareness about the dangers of opioid misuse
and proper disposal of medications. On Saturday, October 24, in
alignment with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National
Prescription Drug Take Back Day, approximately 95 HCA Healthcare
facilities across 16 states will partner with local law enforcement
agencies to collect unused and expired prescription medications at
events across the country.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an
estimated 2 million people in the U.S. suffered from an opioid use
disorder and more than 67,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in
2018. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the U.S. is seeing an
increase in opioid usage, with 40 states reporting increases in
opioid-related mortality, according to the American Medical
Association (AMA).
“The misuse of prescription opioids often begins when the drugs
are obtained from a friend or family member's medicine cabinet,
making it more important than ever to get unused pain medications
out of homes and safely discarded,” said Dr. Michael Schlosser,
chief medical officer of HCA Healthcare’s national group and vice
president of group operations, Clinical Operations Group. “We were
thrilled at the success of last year’s ‘Crush the Crisis’ events
and look forward to continuing the fight against opioid abuse on
October 24.”
The idea for HCA Healthcare’s “Crush the Crisis” came from Sara
Stedman, an orthopedic nurse who has witnessed the effects of
opioid addiction. In 2017, Stedman inspired a single take back
event at TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee,
and the following year HCA Healthcare’s TriStar Division joined her
cause, with eight hospitals collecting more than 224 pounds of
medication. Last year, “Crush the Crisis” was rolled out
nationally, spanning 100 locations across 16 states, with 5,887
pounds of medication collected. This equates to over 4 million
doses of unused medication.
“In every community, people are losing their jobs, losing their
families, losing their lives, because of opioid abuse, and I felt
like I needed to act,” said Stedman. “Thanks to the continuous
support of HCA Healthcare and those across the country that
participated, we’re making a real impact by removing harmful drugs
from our communities.”
COVID-19 safety protocols will be in place at the events,
including universal masking, social distancing, and the removal of
high-touch items.
To further help combat the nation’s opioid crisis, HCA
Healthcare proudly collaborates with and provides clinical insight
to the National Academy of Medicine’s (NAM) Action Collaborative
on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic. HCA Healthcare has
committed $750,000 to the Collaborative to support the development
of safer pain management protocols and reversal of the opioid
crisis.
As a learning health system, HCA Healthcare uses data from
approximately 35 million annual patient encounters to help
continuously improve care. The organization uses the science of
“big data” to reduce opioid misuse and transform pain management,
with initiatives in surgical, emergency and other care settings,
including:
- Enhanced Surgical Recovery (ESR): a multi-modal approach
to pain management using pre, intra and post-operative
interventions to optimize outcomes. HCA Healthcare’s ESR programs
have demonstrated significant improvements in surgical recovery and
patient satisfaction and, importantly, up to a 50.8% decrease in
opioid use in data collected from 124,000 major abdominal, joint,
gynecologic oncology, spinal and bariatric surgeries from January
2018 through August 2020.
- ALTernatives to Opioids in the Emergency Room (ALTO in the
ER): a multi-modal approach to acute pain management, which
focuses on alternative medication to hit various pain receptors as
a first line treatment for common painful conditions. Initial
results of ALTO pilot programs demonstrate a 36% reduction in
opioid administrations.
- Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances (EPCS):
aims to stem increasing rates of opioid-related addiction, misuse
diversion and death by making it more difficult for
medication-seekers to doctor-shop and alter prescriptions.
Physicians have access to aggregated electronic health records
(EHR), providing data that will allow them to prescribe opioids
judiciously.
Please click here for more information on HCA Healthcare’s
“Crush the Crisis” collection sites.
About HCA Healthcare Nashville-based HCA Healthcare is
one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare services
comprising more than 2,000 sites of care, including 186 hospitals,
surgery centers, freestanding ERs, urgent care centers, and
physician clinics, in 21 states and the United Kingdom. With its
founding in 1968, HCA Healthcare created a new model for hospital
care in the United States, using combined resources to strengthen
hospitals, deliver patient-focused care and improve the practice of
medicine. HCA Healthcare has conducted a number of clinical
studies, including one that demonstrated that full-term delivery is
healthier than early elective delivery of babies and another that
identified a clinical protocol that can reduce bloodstream
infections in ICU patients by 44 percent. HCA Healthcare is a
learning health system that uses its more than 35 million annual
patient encounters to advance science, improve patient care and
save lives. Please click here to connect with HCA Healthcare on
social media.
All references to “Company,” “HCA” and “HCA
Healthcare” as used throughout this document refer to HCA
Healthcare, Inc. and its affiliates.
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