The population health workplace environment describes the communities and localities in which the nurses in the sector work. Population health nurses act as Care Coordinators, Community-Based Facilitators, Informatics Specialists, and Primary care Partners. In the future, the workplace environment for these nurses has to be proved with better data storage and analysis systems. In ensuring a supportive workplace environment, the provision of supportive equipment should be made the top priority for the government. The culture of a given community plays a crucial role in the development of the analysis of data of a given population (Benjamin, 2016). Cultures influence the health implications of a given community. Currently, little considerations are made regarding the effects of culture on the health of a given population. In the future, population health estimates that culture will be a critical factor in the provision of primary care services and the determination of health factors influencing a given population.
Supportive communities are those that offer effective collaboration between nurses and the community. For instance, in the study and collection of data about a specific trend, a supportive community is willing to provide the data as required by the population health personnel. Sensitization about the importance of population health should be done to ensure that in the future, communities offer no resistance to initiatives of population health personnel (Benjamin, 2016). Similarly, good climatic conditions are good for the provision of quality population health services.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The CDC lays different guidelines for the prescription of Opioids for Chronic Pain. This guideline helps in the improvement of communication between patients and providers about the benefits and risks associated with opioid therapy for chronic pain. This guideline also helps in the improvement of the effectiveness and safety of this treatment. The guideline states that there should be a process of determining when the process should be initiated or continued for chronic pain. Here, before beginning the opioid therapy, the providers should set goals for this treatment, and these goals should include; realistic goals for countering pain and function and the conditions for discontinuation of the process in cases of risks (Dowell, 2016). During the process or even before the beginning, the providers should be willing to discuss the progress of their patients. When the process is in progress, the clinicians should regularly determine and discuss the benefits and risks associated with the treatment.
In the selection of opioid; duration, dosage, discontinuation, or follow-up processes, several guidelines should be followed. First, immediate-release opioids are prescribed when starting the therapy. Additionally, during this starting phase, the lowest effective dosage should be administered by clinicians. Long-term use of opioids should start with acute pain treatment; three days are required for this exercise, with seven days being the maximum duration. Within 1-4 weeks, the clinicians should evaluate the harms and benefits of using this method. Finally, the assessment of risk and the process of addressing harm should be done effectively. At the start and during the process, clinicians must periodically evaluate the benefits and risks of the process (Dowell, 2016). Using the state prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP), the clinicians then review the patient’s history regarding prescriptions of controlled substances. Urine drug testing should be used before the process and annually for the assessment of prescribed medications. For the cases of patients with opioid use disorder, the clinicians should use an evidence-based process that a combination of methadone and buprenorphine.
In 2016, more than 42,000 deaths were reported resulting from the overdose of opioids. Out of these deaths, 40% resulted from prescribed opioids (Murthy, 2016). Using this new information, the future of opioid usage could see a huge reduction in the number of people succumbing to overdoses (Murthy, 2016). For instance, clinicians will adopt the CDC’s guidelines, ensuring that no patients die from the overdoses.
References
Benjamin, G. C. (2016). Ensuring population health: an important role for pharmacy. American journal of pharmaceutical education , 80 (2).
Dowell, D. (2016). CDC guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain.
Murthy, V. H. (2016). Ending the opioid epidemic—a call to action. New England Journal of Medicine , 375 (25), 2413-2415.
