Opioid Safety

SHM is committed to supporting hospitalists and their teams in developing comprehensive strategies and programs that will promote patient safety in the administration of opioid therapy.

The RADEO Implementation Guide provides step-by-step guidance to assist hospital teams in implementing a quality improvement program to improve patient safety and reduce opioid-related adverse events for patients receiving opioids, including:

• Instituting safer opioid prescribing practices resulting in fewer adverse events, like dangerous over sedation, respiratory depression and death
• Focusing on hospitalized patients, with essential building blocks for developing a quality improvement initiative addressing the inpatient setting
• Creating a quality improvement project team in your hospital, gaining institutional support and securing buy-in of frontline staff to ensure successful implementation
• Developing strategies for evaluating current processes, facilitating policy formation, identifying best practices and tracking progress against implementation goals
• Optimizing care transitions for patients on opioid therapy in the outpatient setting
• Exploring a customized approach to address the specific needs of your hospital

In February of 2017, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM)’s Center for Quality Improvement (QI) has been distinguished by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for maintaining an ongoing collaborative partnership with the CMS to enhance patient safety, for which the RADEO Program played a pivitol role. Read SHM’s Press Release.