Drawing upon more than a decade of experience in medicine, Dr. Amsalu Bizuneh serves as a clinical lead hospitalist with Charlotte, North Carolina's Novant Health. Supplementing his experience, Dr. Amsalu Bizuneh holds membership with the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM).
Founded in 1997 by John Nelson and Winthrop Whitcomb, the SHM serves to promote high-quality health care for hospitalized patients. One of the ways in which it does so is through its advocacy efforts and letters to government committees and organizations.
In March, the SHM sent a letter to the House Committee on Ways and Means outlining its suggestions for policy changes regarding the prescription of opioids and the treatment of opioid use disorder. The suggestions were gathered from a workgroup comprising clinician experts and published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine in April.
One of the main suggestions in the letter was to establish a nationwide database of opioid prescriptions by patient so that clinicians would be better able to detect patterns of abuse. While every state has its own Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, there's a strong need for consistent data sharing across state lines. The SHM also stressed the need for collaborative partnerships between professional societies and the federal government in education outreach efforts as well as an increase in reimbursement for telehealth services relating to mental health screening, diagnosis, and treatment.
