In 2017, fentanyl surpassed heroin as the leading drug involved in overdose deaths, increasing from 57 percent of opioid-related deaths in 2016 to 84 percent in 2017.
On a busy summer evening, six patients were brought by EMS transport to the emergency department at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center for suspected overdose of crack cocaine, which, unbeknownst to the patients, had been mixed with fentanyl. Within four days, ED providers treated 12 more patients with the same life-threatening overdose symptoms. For senior resident Utsha Khatri, it was clear something was wrong. Khatri’s actions set off a chain reaction among ED leadership, Philadelphia’s Poison Center, and the Department of Health, and resulted in a coordinated rapid response that helped to stem the influx of overdose patients in just a few days.
Khatri and Jeanmarie Perrone, a professor of emergency medicine and director of Medical Toxicology, share how things unfolded that weekend, lessons learned, and how their actions can serve as a model for other hospitals on the front lines of fighting the opioid epidemic.
Read the Q&A on the Penn Medicine News Blog.
