In a recent press release, Schumacher Clinical Partners’ (SCP) most senior medical leaders, comprised of 23 physicians and nurses, including the company’s Enterprise Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Randy Pilgrim, and Founder & Executive Chairman, Dr. William C. “Kip” Schumacher, recently congregated to address head-on the rising abuse of opioids in the U.S. and how emergency department providers can help stem what President Trump has declared a “national public health emergency.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), opioid overdoses continue to increase in the U.S., an epidemic not limited to any age, sex, or geographic area. In 2017, the rate of overdose was 30 percent higher than the previous year (most recent data). The CDC further reports that individuals who overdose are likely to have another, and have called upon emergency medicine providers to be aware of the “opportunity for prevention” during emergency department patient encounters.
SCP-managed emergency departments are currently in 30 states across 300 client hospitals where some 6,000 medical providers care for approximately 8 million patients annually. “Partnering with local communities, leaders, and patients to positively impact this national crisis goes hand-in-hand with our professional responsibility as clinicians,” remarked Dr. Randy Pilgrim, SCP Enterprise Chief Medical Officer, at the company’s recent Clinical Leadership Council meeting.