Contact: Sara Quale
sara.quale@bannerhealth.com
(970) 810-6133
GREELEY, Colorado (Jan. 3, 2019) – Five Colorado hospitals in Banner Health have joined the state’s ALTO Project to reduce the administration of opioids in the hospitals’ emergency departments. Banner Health’s goal is to improve pain management for patients and return them to a maximum quality of life while recognizing and controlling the inherent risks of prescribing highly addictive medications like opioids.
The Banner Health hospitals in Colorado joining the program are Banner Fort Collins Medical Center in Fort Collins, East Morgan County Hospital in Brush, McKee Medical Center in Loveland, North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, and Sterling Regional MedCenter in Sterling. Banner North Colorado Emergency, a standalone emergency room in Greeley, also will adopt the program. Because the hospitals all use the same electronic medical record in Banner Health, the physicians at individual facilities access the same care plans for treating patients. The new processes go into effect Jan. 16.
Through the ALTO program, clinicians remain dedicated to understanding and responding appropriately to patients’ physical and emotional symptoms of pain. In addition, they take steps to help the community combat the ongoing opioid epidemic.
The project implements components from the 2017 Opioid Prescribing & Treatment Guidelines developed by the Colorado chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. These guidelines include using alternatives to opioids as a first line of defense in treating patients with painful conditions before resorting to opioids.
“Currently physicians use their best judgment and in a strong majority of the situations, they prescribe alternatives to opiods,” said Angela Mills, MD, chief medical officer at North Colorado Medical Center. “However, they also want the patient to be comfortable. When someone says he has pain at a level 9 on a scale of 10, this can be challenging.”
Colorado is at the forefront of the nation’s opioid epidemic with the 12th highest rate of prescription opioid misuse and abuse out of all 50 states. Colorado hospitals, particularly the EDs, are in a strong position to integrate new and more effective pain management treatments that are tailored to each patient’s unique pain experience.
In January 2018, Colorado Hospital Association announced the results of the Colorado Opioid Safety Pilot initiated in 10 EDs across the state in 2017. During the six-month pilot, the participating facilities reduced the administration of opioids by an average of 36 percent and increased the usage of ALTOs by 31 percent.
Headquartered in Arizona, Banner Health is one of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the country. The system owns and operates 28 acute-care hospitals, Banner Health Network, Banner – University Medicine, academic and employed physician groups, long-term care centers, outpatient surgery centers and an array of other services; including Banner Urgent Care, family clinics, home care and hospice services, pharmacies and a nursing registry. Banner Health is in six states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming. For more information, visit www.BannerHealth.com.