The Center for Personalized Education for Physicians Offers Prescribing Controlled Substances Course

DENVER, Oct. 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- CPEP, The Center for Personalized Education for Physicians, in collaboration with the Vanderbilt Center for Professional Health, is offering Vanderbilt's highly regarded Prescribing Controlled Drugs: Critical Issues and Common Pitfalls© course on December 9-11, 2015 in Denver.

This three-day course is designed to teach physicians and healthcare professionals appropriate prescribing practices, facilitate understanding of personal motivations in the patient, discuss personal responsibilities with patients, and cultivate new skills in substance abuse identification.

Since 1997, the number of Americans seeking treatment for addiction to painkillers increased by 900 percent¹. Deaths from prescription painkiller overdose have skyrocketed in recent years. Forty-four people die in the U.S. from a prescription opioid overdose each day, according to the CDC². The majority of deaths are among non-Hispanic white persons, the agency reports. The rate of prescription painkiller overdose deaths in this demographic increased more than four times, from 1.6 per 100,000 in 1999 to 6.8 per 100,000 in 2013³.

In Colorado, where CPEP is based, prescription drug overdoses killed on average 35 Coloradans a month in 2013, according the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.

Overprescribing leads to more abuse and more overdoses. The CDC notes overdose rates are higher in states where prescription painkillers are prescribed more frequently⁴.

The CPEP course is taught by a multidisciplinary team including by Elizabeth S. Grace, M.D., CPEP's medical director. Additional faculty members include LaTisha L. Bader, Ph.D., Mita M. Johnson, Ed.D., and Cheryl Hara, J.D.

The CPEP course focuses on:

• The drug-seeking patient
• The use of SBIRT (screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment) to identify potential chemical dependency
• Risky prescribing practices of controlled substances
• Current information on proper prescribing practices of controlled substances
• Strategies to avoid risky prescribing behaviors
• Information on state prescription drug monitoring programs

For those attending the Prescribing Controlled Drugs: Critical Issues and Common Pitfalls© course, typical problem behaviors have included the inappropriate dispensing of medications from physicians' offices, prescribing controlled substances in large quantities and/or at too frequent intervals, or prescribing for family members, friends, or people with known histories of substance abuse.

¹ https://heller.brandeis.edu/news/items/releases/2015/overprescribing.html
² http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm.
³ http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html
⁴ http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0701-opioid-painkiller.html

Contact:
Erich Kirshner
Evolution Communications Agency
303.921.6733 or [email protected]

SOURCE Center for Personalized Education for Physicians