Opioid Crisis in Missouri
Healthcare policy encompasses creating and implementing of regulations, rules, and laws for the management of the healthcare system of the nation. It involves guidelines aimed at achieving healthcare goals in society. There are existing implications for healthcare policies which include improvement of people’s quality of life and influence of positive change. Advocacy’s role is to unify as well as support the nursing occupation and also revolutionize healthcare. Advocacy’s impact on healthcare policy is that it offers knowledge on the intended recipient for particular strategies as well as the measurable results after the implementation of the system. An Advanced Practice Nurse’s responsibility includes advocacy since a professional’s role is to offer quality care assurance through the influence of practice standards by the use of the policy. Being a leader, they should encourage as well as embrace reforms to help in addressing challenges and benefits for any possible system. This paper focuses on an opioid crisis healthcare concern in Missouri, offer a solution to the healthcare concern, identified official, and a summary.
In Missouri, there lacks a program to monitor drug prescription. The population which is affected is all the races, ages, and genders. In the prescription of drugs, there is no discrimination. In the .U.S., about 4.4 million people reported their use of opioids which was not medical in 2014, with many fatalities emanating from a drug overdose which was higher than in 2013 REF. The opioid crisis impacts negatively on the community of Missouri, and the population as the drugs are abused, causing destruction of lives and even death. Crime also increases as a result. The Centre for Disease Control CDC shows that 116 individuals died every day caused by opioid-related overdose, with 11.5 misusing the prescription of opioid REF. Physicians dealing with a patient taking opioid prescription might be unaware that their patients are seeing more than one physicians, taking a similar prescription. Regrettably, the tracking of only a few counties in Missouri lacks drug prescription. When prescribing opioids, drug interactions, high dose, and cases of multiple providers should be considered. Elimination of the chances of the access of these drugs can be done by physicians where they prescribe and also report as required to help reduce the likelihood of opioid abuse.
Solving Missouri’s Opioid Crisis
Coming up with an all-inclusive program for drug monitoring can help in changing the behavior of the prescriber as well as that of the patients who self-prescribe, resulting in positive results. Missouri remains to be the one state with no state-wide monitoring program for prescription drugs in the U.S. Offering a patient-controlled substance is essential in providing critical information as it helps in proving the description of a controlled substance. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services can come up with a program to monitor the use of prescription drugs. The Program will ascertain that patients are accessing safe and effective treatment while at the same time decreasing the people abusing, overdosing, and misusing drugs. It is essential that the Program also includes reporting frequency, the monitored drug schedules, physicians, and pharmacies requirements in registering and using the Program, among others. The Program needs to be designed in a way that it is accessible only by authorized personnel. There should be access to relevant information in the database for the history of prescription.
The information regarding dose, prescriber, and the supply of scheduled drugs should be accessible. This can help prescribers in making an informed decision after getting access to the database. In addition, optimization of PDMP use can contribute to the act as a tool for delivering healthcare information, enabling healthcare professionals to get easy access. Real-time reporting can also help the viewers to access the most current data and thus getting a hold of people mishandling opioids, and only allowing convenient and legal accessibility. There should be an expansion in the access of the database to the pharmacists as well as prescribers and also mental health specialists to help them look into any necessary clarification they might need. Finally, delivering proactive reports and alert hints at the unusual and suspicious prescription history will significantly help reduce cases of abuse among Missouri residents.
There are benefits arising from the implementation of the program monitoring opioid prescription. First, there is an improvement in the safety of patients by allowing the clinicians to point out patients obtaining the medicine from more than one provider by calculating the opioids prescribed and the identification of patients accessing other prescribed substances which can cause an adverse reaction. A study conducted between 2001 and 2010 shows that implementing a specified drug-monitoring platform had an association with a 30% reduction of opioids prescription for Schedule II REF. Consequently, this portrays a positive correlation in implementing a program of monitoring prescription drugs which is better than having none.
Challenges also emanate from the available solution. The regulation of PDMPs might prevent the frequent update of data. The consistency and frequency of use may as well differ as some states need research and use before the prescription of opioid. In addition, healthcare professionals are unwilling to utilize and learn from the Program since they consider it intrusive to their patients and causing inconveniences. Survey shows that 78% of the respondents were allowed and registered to use PDMP, with63% of the unregistered being unable to register ref. It is hard to change old habits; however, when the patients and prescribers are instilled with the knowledge regarding the positive outcomes and benefits of change, they will oppose less. Training and education thus can help communicate on the need for prescription and the minoring of drugs. There will be a decrease in morbidity and mortality rate if there is an accurate prescription of opioids, diverting, controlled substances, and deterring abuse.
Elected Official
The presentation of the healthcare official will be done in the presence of Senator Andrew Koenig, Missouri’s Senator who represents the 15th districts including Valley Park, Fenton, Des Peres, Wildwood, Kirkwood, Chesterfield, Twin Oaks, Winchester, Ellisville, Clarkson Valley, Sunset Hills, Glendale, Ballwin among others. He was elected because he was a good representative of my district. To help in escalating the concern, community awareness on opioid crisis will be the first step in the different regions, followed by the state governor and ultimately the U.S. Senator. After reviewing the membership of the community, they can select one which suits the healthcare policy concern in question. The Health and Pensions Committee works on considering as well as reporting bills which are related to MO HealthNet which is an alternative system which delivers healthcare proposals on hospital operations, development disability, Disease control, and substance addiction and abuse. Senator Koenig’s desire to bring on changes will be of benefit to the residents. Additionally, he has bills that are healthcare-related, so a state-wide program aimed at monitoring drugs will be favorable for him and also solve the opioid calamity.
Conclusion
Nurses have an obligation to take part in healthcare policies. The mission is to improve on the people’s quality of life. Influencing legislation with benefits to the practice authority will help result in a more significant impact in the community. Being informed and engaged in current issues can help Advance Practice Nurses to partake a substantial role in healthcare reformation efforts. The opioid crisis concern needs to be presented to the Senator of Missouri in an attempt to implement a program for monitoring the prescription of drugs. The identification of the problem, looking for a solution, designing a strategic plan, and the implementation of the project and lastly evaluating it will help resolve the issue. Missouri can thus accomplish their aim by the involvement of healthcare policy. This is by the designation of a sophisticated drug monitoring program to help in the evaluation of opioid prescribing conduct, opioid misuse, opioid-related mortality, and morbidity, as well as opioid supply and diversion.