June 2007
In
this issue…
SCPI
Awarded $10,000 for Pain Video
National
Pain Care Policy Act Endorsement
Volunteers
for SCPI Speakers’ Bureau Needed
Caregivers
and Managing Cancer Pain
Surgery
Can Fix Back Problems, But Time Works Too
National
Conference on Health Disparities
The
Complexities of Caring for People in Pain: Free Resource
SCPI
Awarded $10,000 for Pain Video
SCPI has partnered with Medical University of South Carolina and the South Carolina Hospital Association to create a video for patients in South Carolina hospitals. The project is set to begin July 1st. The funding award was given by The Alliance of State Pain Initiatives and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The video titled Project APPROACH (Awareness of Patient Pain and Rights for Optimal Assessment and Communication in Hospitals) will begin as a pilot study and then will be marketed to hospitals throughout the state. Patients will be able to watch the video on the hospital channel while in their rooms at participating South Carolina hospitals. The video will teach patients about their rights to pain assessment and treatment and encourage communication about their pain with their providers. MUSC Technological Services will film the video. A Task Force for creation of the script and video is in process of being formed. Please contact Shannon Johnson if you are interested in being apart of this committee.
National
Pain Care Policy Act Endorsement
With
the new Congress of 2007, an updated and improved version of the National
Pain Care Policy Act of 2007 will be introduced by The American Pain
Foundation (APF) to
the House and Senate (please see link
below to a summary of the bill and fact sheet).
The South Carolina Pain Initiative
has endorsed its support of the policy act along with over 100 other
organizations.
Consensus
Statement Supporting the National Pain Care Policy Act of 2007
Pain
touches every member of our society at some point in life. The National
Center for Health Statistics estimates that 76.2 million one in every four
Americans have suffered from pain that lasts longer than 24 hours;
millions more suffer from acute pain. Left untreated, pain can rob quality
of life and affect every aspect of daily living, including work, sleep,
and social relations.
NOW is the time to educate healthcare professionals, people in pain and
their loved ones, as well as the general public about the importance of
achieving appropriate pain assessment and management and addressing the
barriers that prevent pain control in every instance, particularly among
minority and other medically underserved populations, and to coordinate
research on the causes of pain and development of improved therapies to
manage it adequately.
As members and representatives of the pain care community, the undersigned
organizations support and urge passage of the National Pain Care Policy
Act of 2007, which includes the following four actions:
-
Convene an Institute of Medicine Conference on Pain Care, with a Report Summarizing Findings and Recommendations;
-
Authorize a Permanent Pain Consortium at the National Institutes of Health to Coordinate Pain Research Across Institutes and Centers;
-
Create an Education and Training Grant Program to Improve Health Professionals’ Understanding and Ability to Assess and Appropriately Treat Pain; and
-
Develop and Implement a National Pain Management Public Outreach and Awareness Campaign.
For
more information on the 2007 National Pain Care Policy Act and to see the
organizations that are listed as supporters, visit the APF
Web site.
Volunteers
for SCPI Speakers’ Bureau Needed
A multidisciplinary speakers’ bureau is being developed to conduct education sessions on pain related topics throughout the state. Some of the topics proposed include Overview of Pain Management, Pain Assessment in the Cognitively Impaired Hospice Patient, Cancer Pain Management, Alternative Therapies and Pediatric Pain Evaluation. Healthcare systems throughout the state will be represented by physicians and physician assistants, nurses and nurse practitioners, social workers, pharmacists and chaplains. If you have any topics you would like to suggest or if you would like to volunteer to be a speaker, please contact Shannon Johnson.
Pain
Opioids and Addiction
The
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) recently sponsored a conference
“to help advance research and interdisciplinary dialogue on the
interface between pain treatment and abuse of pain medications.”
Sessions presented at that meeting in March included research on ways to
identify patients who may be substance abusers, techniques for prescribing
opioids safely and the development of painkillers that may be less
addictive.
Webcast
regarding Pain Opioids and Addiction
The webcast from the March session can be viewed at the NIDA Web site. (JAMA, 2007; 297:1965–1967; NIDA Website)
Caregivers
and Managing Cancer Pain
An abstract of the article Knowledge of and Barriers to Pain Management in Caregivers of Cancer Patients Receiving Homecare can be found at the Cancer Nursing Online Web site.
Managing
Ethics and Pain
The March issue of Pain Management Nursing takes a look at how the “noncompliance of family caregivers can present home hospice nurses with difficult ethical choices and powerful feelings about those choices” and presents a case study. Pain Management Nursing, 2007; 8(1):25–34
View an abstract of the article here.
View the full text including links here.
View
a PDF of the article here.
Surgery
Can Fix Back Problems, But Time Works Too
Appropriate surgical procedures may provide valuable pain relief but there are other options to consider as well…
Read the full article from the Health News section at CNN.com.
Phantom
Pain
The Post and Courier recently printed an article regarding phantom pain, a disorder where amputees feel pain from the body part that was removed. The article presents some theories about how this problem originates.
Pain
Updates
·
California’s
Institute for Healthcare Advancement recently held its sixth annual Health
Literacy Conference and focused on the communication gap between doctors
and patients. According to the article, “Medical terms are hard enough
to understand for the average patient, let alone those who are nonnative
English speakers or native English speakers who can’t read well.
Everything from consent forms to pill instructions can be a burden to
anyone with less than a college education.” Further, the author notes,
“There are demonstrated links between low education or low literacy and
poor health. Patients with limited reading skills tend to seek care later,
have a harder time following instructions and are less likely to follow up
with secondary services. They are also more likely to be victims of
medication errors.” (The
Orange County Register, 5/5, The Carolinas Center, 5/07)
·
An
article in The San Luis Obispo Tribune defined hospice and
palliative medicine and reported that Dr. Mark Ward, medical director of
Hospice Partners of the Central Coast, is the only palliative medicine
certified doctor in the county. Ward’s practice is largely with nursing
home and hospice patients. (The
San Luis Obispo Tribune, 5/8, The Carolinas Center 5/07)
·
The
media widely reported last week that Purdue Pharma LP and three current
and former executives pleaded guilty to charges of misleading the public
about the risk of addiction to OxyContin, the company’s
widely-prescribed painkiller. A US attorney in the Western District of
Virginia said, “With its OxyContin, Purdue unleashed a highly abusable,
addictive, and potentially dangerous drug on an unsuspecting and unknowing
public. For these misrepresentations and crimes, Purdue and its executives
have been brought to justice.” Purdue Pharma and the three executives
will pay $634.5 million in fines. (AP,
5/9; The Wall Street Journal Online, 5/10, The Carolinas Center
5/07)
·
Richard
Pretorius, a former copy editor for The Washington Post, told the
“haunting” story of his mother’s terrible death of cancer. That
death, he says, “is a cautionary tale of modern medicine. It’s a story
of profits placed ahead of patients, of medical professionals protecting
their own and of the dying elderly being treated as if they were already
dead.” Pretorius’ mother, Holly, was transferred to a care facility,
while vomiting blood and in severe pain, because no hospice had an
inpatient bed available and the hospital refused to care for her any
longer. Twenty hours after her transfer to a facility that had no pain
medication for her, she died. Pretorius wrote, “As galling as anything
to me were the words of a hospital bean counter—otherwise known as a
risk-assessment manager—who asked me what difference it would have made
if my mother had died in the hospital rather than the way she did.
Translation: She was going to die anyway, so who really cares where and
how?” (The Washington
Post, 5/6, The Carolinas Center 5/07)
·
The
results from the Children’s Hospitals Activate to Manage Pain (CHAMP)
survey, conducted by Endo Pharmaceuticals, found that “hospital-based
pediatric pain specialists are generally dissatisfied with standard
treatment options for managing procedure-related pain and there appears to
be a relatively low level of knowledge about the newest treatment options
that may address their concerns.” Less than half (42%) were “‘very
satisfied’ with long-standing pediatric pain prevention treatment
options, with most indicating that length of time to treatment effect
(75%) and lengthy prep time (58%) were common reasons for the
dissatisfaction.” (Pharma
Investments, Ventures & Law Weekly, 5/20, The Carolinas Center,
5/07)
· The National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC) and the American Cancer Society will award $1.5 million in research grants at 10 institutions for “studies aimed at reducing suffering for seriously ill patients and their family caregivers.” The initiative “is designed to support clinician investigators conducting patient-oriented research in palliative care in hopes of bringing more funding from federal agencies, which have supported some research in palliative care, but for whom it is not a priority area. Pilot data results are typically needed before a federal agency will consider funding a research project.” (Health & Medicine Week, 5/14; Hospital Business Week, 5/20, The Carolinas Center, 5/07)
National
Conference on Health Disparities
Charleston
- July 19–21 Congressman Jim Clyburn was instrumental in having the
National Conference on Health Disparities held in Charleston this year and
SCHA encourages members to attend to learn about strategies that are
proving successful in addressing health disparities. 
Although
the last 10 years have brought increased attention to the health
disparities that burden so many Americans, important questions remain.
Where have we been? What have we learned? Where have we made progress?
Where have we lagged? And perhaps most importantly, where do we go from
here?
Finding
answers to these questions is particularly important to residents of 13
states, where health disparities are most prevalent. According to the 2005
edition of the United Health Foundation in conjunction with the American
Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention, these states and
their rankings include North Carolina (36), Kentucky (39), South Carolina
(48), Mississippi (48) and Louisiana (50).
Incorporating
historical context, proven strategies and visionary thinking, this
conference offers guidance to those individuals, communities, health care
providers, funding agencies, political leaders and public policy makers
who seek reduction and elimination of health disparities.
Co-sponsored
by MUSC and SC State University, in conjunction with the National Center
for Minority Health and Health Disparities, The Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation, Inc., and The Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust,
the conference will include speakers from throughout the U.S., including
Congressman Clyburn, Senator Lindsey Graham, Dr. Raymond Greenberg and
Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter from South Carolina.
Attendees
will stay at the Charleston Marriott, Conference Code: MUSMUSA, telephone
number (843) 723-3000.
To
view the conference brochure, click here.
To register for this conference online, click here.
Reprinted
from the SCHA Update (5/21/07)
Educational
Opportunities
Pain
Management Workshop
Sponsored
by Doctor’s Hospital and United Hospice
Susan
Prather, RN, CHPN, MA
Monday,
July 16th 9 a.m.–3 p.m.
Doctors
Hospital H2U Building
Aiken/N
Augusta, GA
For
more information: 706-650-1522
John
E. Barkely, MD, FCCP, Vice-President Medical Services, Hospice &
Palliative Care Charlotte Region, Charlotte, NC
Thursday,
July 26 from 8:30–9:30 a.m.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to: describe the natural history of ALS; review which treatments have been proven to improve quality of life for patients with ALS; and review prognostication and appropriate timing of hospice referral for patients with ALS. To register online for this program, visit the the Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care Web site.
Save
the Date!
The
Carolinas Pain Congress
SCPI/NCPI
Meetings
September
27 and 28
Charlotte, NC
The
Complexities of Caring for People in Pain: Free Resource
Purdue
Pharma L.P. offers a free CD-Rom for healthcare professionals. The disc is
listed on page 18 of their on-line
catalog. Ordering instructions are on page two of the catalog.
·
Reviews barriers to appropriate
pain management
·
Discusses pathophysiology of
pain
·
Identifies components of a
comprehensive, multi-dimensional pain assessment
·
Based on pathophysiology and
comprehensive assessment, develops an on-going pain management plan
including both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions
·
Discusses basic principals of
pain pharmacotherapy including the use of a non-opioid, adjuvant
(co-analgesic) and opioid analgesics.
Again, please check out the SCPI webpage and consider saving this link to your Favorites so that we can keep you updated on the latest news, events and resources in Pain Management.
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