Drug-related deaths overburden Maryland medical examiner's office (Baltimore Sun)

Monday Apr 17th, 2017

The opioid epidemic that has claimed so many lives in Maryland is overwhelming the state medical examiner's office.

The agency has exceeded national caseload standards — the number of autopsies a single pathologist should perform in a year — in each of the past four years. The office now risks losing its accreditation.

"Everyone continues to add on work hours and work faster and hopefully not take short cuts," said Dr. David R. Fowler, Maryland's chief medical examiner. "They absorb this extra load. But there is a point where they can't continue to add to that and expect the system will function."

The challenge is not limited to Maryland. The combination of additional and more complex cases is overwhelming medical examiners' offices across the country, particularly along the East Coast, leaving many on the verge of losing accreditation.

"We view this as a national crisis," said Dr. Brian L. Peterson, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners.

The association categorizes the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, traditionally well regarded by peers, as "deficient." It will re-evaluate the Baltimore-based agency in May.

The office can continue to operate without accreditation. But the association warns that performing too many autopsies can jeopardize quality and undermine confidence in the results.

...

Read the entire story. 

 

Related Stories

Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

Read the entire story.

Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu

Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

Read the entire story.