Owensboro Health, substance treatment providers, to hold physician training on opioid addiction

June 13--Owensboro Health Regional Hospital and the Daviess County Agency for Substance Abuse Prevention board will host two training sessions later this month where physicians will receive information about the dangers of prescribing opioid painkillers.

The training sessions, which will be June 30, are being presented through a partnership between Owensboro Health and Daviess County ASAP. The goal of the sessions is to educate doctors, pharmacists, dentists, veterinarians (who also deal with opioid painkilers) and their staffs to learn more about the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on prescribing opioid painkillers such as Lortab and Oxycontin, to hear personal stories from people who have lost family members to opioid addiction and to discuss alternatives to prescribing opioids.

Opioid painkillers are a concern because patients who become addicted are prone to switch to heroin, which is cheaper on the street than prescription pills. There are various dangers with using heroin -- such as the risk of contracting diseases through needle sharing -- but the main risk is overdose. Officials have said previously that, unlike a prescription pain pill, users don't know the potency of the heroin doses they are using.

Drug overdoses are serious problem in Kentucky. According to the 2014 overdose fatality report, more people died of drug overdoses, of all types, in Kentucky than of any other cause, including motor vehicle accidents.

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines for doctors on how they should prescribe opioid painkillers to patients. The CDC doesn't recommend limits on pain medications for people with terminal illnesses, but the federal agency recommends patients starting opioid therapy should receive short-acting instead of extended-release painkillers, and that patients should be started on the lowest doses first.

For pain not caused by surgery or traumatic injury, the CDC recommends giving people prescriptions for no more than three days.

The guidelines say people on long-term opioid therapy should be evaluated in the first few weeks after they start taking the medications, and should receive follow-up evaluations at least every three months after that, to weigh the "benefits and harms of continued opioid therapy."

Gary Hall, of RiverValley Behavioral Health, said Daviess County ASAP has been conducting training sessions on the dangers of opioid addiction, and heroin, with funding from state grants.

"We saw we needed to create a a preventative firewall through educational awareness," Hall said. After the CDC released its guidelines, the ASAP board wanted to meeting with physicians to discuss the issue, Hall said.

"We're inviting all health care professionals to this event," Hall said.

Debbie Zuerner Johnson, director of community engagement at Owensboro Health, said the hospital wanted to partner with ASAP so physicians could discuss the CDC guidelines and other issues related to opioid painkillers and medical professionals could determine how they could help combat opioid addiction.

A community health assessment previously determined substance abuse was a community issue, Zuerner Johnson said.

"We were able to work together to provide space, and some of our physicians are going to be speaking as well," Zuerner Johnson said.

"The issue is here and in front of us," Zuerner Johnson said. "We have not experience (heroin) on the level of other communities, and we don't want to."

Part of the sessions will include a presentation of opioid death statistics by state Medical Examiner William C. Ralston. OHRH doctors will discuss the CDC guidelines, and issues such as the effects of drug withdrawal on newborns and alternatives to prescribing opioid painkillers.

The issue is thorny for physicians, because many were trained under previous directives that said doctors should do everything they can to alleviate pain, Hall said.

"They have been trained, probably from medical school ... that there was a mandate from the (World Health Association) that said one of the mandates for physicians was that (patients) shouldn't suffer any pain," Hall said. "... I don't think it's the fault of the physicians, but times have changed, medications have changed, and people can become addicted to these medications."

James Mayse, 270-691-7303, jmayse@messenger-inquirer.com, Twitter: @JamesMayse

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