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A shot from CNN’s “Deadly Dose” documentary featuring an EDIE Notification with Care Guidelines.

On Sunday, November 18, CNN aired a documentary by Dr. Sanjay Gupta entitled “Deadly Dose.” The documentary examined prescription pain medication overuse and abuse, and what some hospitals are doing to treat the epidemic, which kills a person every 19 minutes on average.

According to the documentary, American’s consume 80% of the world’s pain pills. “Truth is, it is easier for a doctor to write a prescription than to explore other effective options to combat pain. And it is easier for patients to take those prescription pills than to search for alternatives themselves,” writes Dr. Gupta in an article introducing his documentary.

The documentary examines these scary statistics while also exploring what solutions are currently available to address the issue. One solution featured the State of Washington’s unique program to help reduce the inappropriate prescribing of pain killers in the ED, while also promoting the proper use of EDs to patients. The program includes the Washington Emergency Department Opioid Prescribing Guidelines and the Seven Best Practices program.

Dr. Gupta visited the ED of MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital, the facilities of UW Medicine, and interviewed Dr. Stephen Anderson, an ED physician at MultiCare Auburn Medical Center. Each of these facilities use EDIE in their EDs, and while at Tacoma General, EDIE Notifications and Care Guidelines were discussed. Every time a patient registers at an ED, the EDIE system checks for other ED visits at EDIE-participating facilities across the State. If the patient meets a certain criteria, or has Care Guidelines in the system, EDIE automatically alerts the ED with a notification that includes visit history, diagnoses, care guidelines and other vital information. A shot from the documentary featuring an EDIE Notification with Care Guidelines can be seen above. The EDIE service enables EDs to collaborate and securely share patient information to help ensure that patients are not over-prescribed.

The documentary will air again on December 1.

You can read Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s introduction article here.

MultiCare also wrote a review on the documentary, which you can find here.