October is National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month, an annual effort by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America to raise awareness of the dangers of prescription and over-the-counter medicine abuse.
And SCA Pharma is partnering with hospital pharmacies to better control pain in patients safely.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the United States continues to face an opioid epidemic, with almost 500,000 Americans dying from overdoses since 2000.
Health care providers have wrestled with finding safer effective methods of pain treatment and have been bolstered by good news on that front. The combination of acetaminophen and ibuprofen represents an effective non-opioid alternative, according to the National Safety Council.
Rachael Colluciello, Certified Registered Professional Nurse Anesthetist and SCA Pharma health care provider, attests, “As an anesthesia provider, in these times of an opioid epidemic, I look for alternative ways to provide analgesia to my patients. Acetaminophen is an excellent choice: It decreases the amount of narcotics needed up to 50%, which decreases the incidence of nausea and vomiting, dizziness, constipation, and the potential for inadvertent opioid addiction.”
