Sending Letters About Their Patients' Overdoses Changes Doctors' Prescribing Habits
Many doctors never find out when a patient dies from an overdose. A new study shows that when find out, it can alter the way they prescribe addictive drugs.
For a doctor, learning that a patient has died is often an emotional moment. Emergency room physician Roneet Lev wondered if telling doctors when their patients die of an overdose might motivate them to rethink their prescribing behavior.
"I asked other physicians if they would want to know if a patient had died," says Lev. "They said yes. I needed to help make that happen."
Lev, the director of operations of the Scripps Mercy Emergency Department in San Diego, coauthored a study published Thursday in that tests this idea.
