Establishing Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would ensure that first responders are included for membership on the Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force. This is a commonsense amendment.

First responders, like police officers and other emergency room staff, are the first on the scene when a person overdoses. And they are the first to administer emergency treatments and resuscitation programs. These are the people who have the first contact with victims of opioid overdose.

It would make sense that if we are putting together a task force to address the terrible opioid problem--and specifically pain management best practices--we should include the views and opinions of those who are first on the scene and in the best position to save lives.

Being first on the scene to overdose emergencies, first responders often interact with patients in pain. Yet, most first responders, especially EMS responders, have no pain management standards as part of their accreditation.

The Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services does not include a pain management standard as part of its clinical assessment, nor is pain management a major part of EMS education. As a result, first responder attitudes vary. According to a 2012 Yale study, there is a widespread reluctance within the EMS community to administer opioids to those who legitimately need it out of a fear--perhaps unfounded--that patients could be addicts seeking drugs.

First responders certainly do encounter people who are not prescription painkiller dependent. However, it is often not possible for paramedics to know with certainty if a patient is an addict or even whether the addict is also experiencing legitimate pain.

This level of uncertainty and varying degrees of attitudes within the first responder community, along with the unique experience and insight into the opioid epidemic, warrants the inclusion of first responders to the Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force membership.

Mr. Chairman, this is very simple, we are putting together a Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force. We should include police officers. We should include paramedics. We should include people who are on the front lines of fighting this battle every day that is a battle of life and death.

I urge the support of my amendment.

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Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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