By EMS1 Staff
BALTIMORE — A panel of doctors, nurses and patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital created opioid prescription guidelines for common surgeries.
The Baltimore Sun reported that the panel recommended doctors prescribe far fewer opioids for 20 operations such as hysterectomies and breast surgeries in an effort to fight the overdose epidemic. The guidelines were published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
The guidelines recommend one to 15 pills for 11 of the 20 procedures, 16 to 20 for six of the procedures and no opioids at all for the remaining three.
Doctors hope the recommendations will prompt hospitals around the country to prescribe fewer opioids.
“Our feeling is we shouldn’t just be using draconian, one-size-fits-all prescribing,” Dr. Martin Makary said. “Everyone is different. Opioid prescribing should fall within a best practices range and currently we don’t do very well with that. Our hope is that this represents a first step in better understanding how we can treat pain better.”
Johns Hopkins will implement the guidelines into their residency program, and they will become the default setting for their electronic medical system, which currently suggests a “dangerously high” 30-day supply for surgeries, according to Makary.
Dr. Heidi Overton said the guidelines show that doctors want to help fix the problem they unknowingly helped create.
“This work reflects that surgeons want to be a part of the solution,” she said.