HCA Healthcare Magazine - Winter 2019 - 10

Moving
Healthcare
Forward
partnering with our colleagues, patients and neighbors and
engaging on important healthcare issues such as this one," says
Joanne Pulles, HCA Healthcare's vice president of community
engagement and president of The HCA Foundation.

With innovation and urgency,
we're doing our part to combat the
nation's opioid epidemic.
he opioid problem in the U.S. is, by any
definition, a crisis. HCA Healthcare is taking
a leading role to combat this grim reality.
We've taken action by establishing take back days at more
than 100 of our hospitals to collect unused prescription
medications and educate area residents. We're also developing
new surgical recovery strategies, exploring alternatives to
opioids and improving prescription monitoring.
Numbers Tell a Sad Story
In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
declared opioid abuse a public health emergency. According
to National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates, an average
of more than 130 people die every day after abusing these
powerful-and powerfully addictive-prescription pain
medications; up to 29% of patients who are prescribed
opioids for chronic pain misuse them, totaling more than
11 million people nationwide.
To support development of safer pain management
protocols, we have also committed $500,000 to the
National Academy of Medicine's (NAM) Action
Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic.
"We're working to create healthier communities by
10 | HCAhealthcare.com

Doing Your Part
Joanne says people are urged to take three simple steps:
"Clean out your medicine cabinet, collect medications that
are no longer needed and safely dispose of them at one of our
Crush the Crisis take back locations."
Dr. Jeff Hodrick was instrumental in forming an opioid
stewardship committee at TriStar Centennial Medical
Center in Nashville in 2017, after attending a HealthTrust
Pain Management Summit. "While brainstorming ways to
help our patients and the community at large, nurse Sara
Stedman and I came across the National DEA Diversion
Take Back Day," he says. "We thought it would be a great way
to educate the local community on the dangers of having
unnecessary opioid medicines in their homes."
"The most difficult notion to get across," says Dr. Hodrick,
"is that you don't need to keep narcotic pain medicine 'just
in case.' If you have a condition that requires medicine,
you'll be issued a new appropriate prescription."
In the fall of 2018, the TriStar Division hosted its first
Crush the Crisis event, including a take back day. Roughly
220 pounds of medications-equaling more than 100,000
doses-were anonymously collected at eight hospitals.
"We knew that with our scale, we could make an even
greater impact by expanding this program to more of the
communities we serve," says Dr. Michael Schlosser, vice
president of clinical excellence and surgical services at
HCA Healthcare. "Take back events are vital to helping
prevent drug overdose, controlling illicit drug use and
curbing [the] opioid crisis."
This year, another collection day took place in early
September, with more than 60 HCA Healthcare facilities
partnering with local law enforcement in 15 states.
There were more take back days later in the fall at a
number of our facilities.
Alternatives for Fighting Pain
We've also been using information obtained through our expansive data warehouse to reduce opioid misuse and transform pain management. Two key programs in that effort are
Enhanced Surgical Recovery (ESR) and Alternatives
to Opioids in the Emergency Room (ALTO in the ER).
ESR focuses on acute pain management and reducing
the need for opioids to manage pain before surgery, during
recovery or in the ER. As of August 2019, ESR procedures

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HCA Healthcare Magazine - Winter 2019

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