In an effort to have all emergency departments in Los Angeles County use the patient handout Safe Pain Medicine Prescribing in Emergency Departments, the Los Angeles County Prescription Drug Abuse Medical Task Force sent a shipment earlier this month of the following two documents:

A two-month supply of the patient handouts for use in your emergency department. Please be on the lookout for this and let us know if you do not receive the handouts by June 20. Also, if it will take additional time for you to gain permission to use the handout, please store the handouts until you are ready to use them. We highly encourage you to begin using the handout within 30 days of receiving the shipment so that all EDs in the county are proceeding ahead on this at the same time. Please email us to let us know about your experience in using the patient handout.

By a separate shipment, we are also mailing you a toolkit, which is a notebook full of information that will be useful to you as you begin to use the patient handout. We are sending one copy of the toolkit to each hospital. Again, let us know if you do not receive the toolkit by June 20.

A final electronic version of the patient handout in both English and Spanish version is available for you to print additional handouts once your two-month supply runs out. We recommend that you print the English and Spanish versions back-to-back. Feel free to print in either a full 8.5×11 size or in a 5.5 x 8.5 (half-page) size, as you prefer.

The coalition is also developing a website that includes electronic copies of all the information contained in the toolkit, including the patient handout, as well as additional resources and information. The website should be completed in the very near future and we will let you know when it is operational: www.LASafePainPrescribing.org.

The Los Angeles County Prescription Drug Abuse Medical Task Force is a coalition of stakeholders that includes the California American College of Emergency Physicians, LA County Medical Association, the Hospital Association of Southern California, LA County Department of Public Health, LA County Department of Health Services and Kaiser Permanente.

Contact: Jaime Garcia

(213) 538-0702, jgarcia@hasc.org