U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) urged the federal Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis to support legislation that she spearheaded that would give medical providers greater access to patient records to improve patient safety.
The Protecting Jessie Grubb’s Legacy Act, S. 1850, would amend standing patient privacy law to ensure that medical providers have access to records documenting patient histories of substance use disorder (SUD) when drafting treatment plans and prescribing medications.
In a letter to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the chairman of the commission established by President Donald Trump in March, Capito and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) wrote that restrictions on the disclosure of SUD treatment can compromise the quality of care and patient safety, which can lead to overdose deaths.
The senators urged Christie to include a recommendation for S.1850 in the commission’s final report. The commission is studying ways to combat drug abuse, addiction, and the opioid crisis, which led to more than 50,000 deaths in 2015, the White House said.
“The Legacy Act is written in honor of a young woman with great potential that we lost in 2016 named Jessica Grubb,” the letter states. “Jessie was a great student, a loving daughter and sister, and an avid runner. She was also recovering from an opioid addiction. Unfortunately, following a surgery, she was sent home from the hospital with a prescription for 50 oxycodone pills despite having informed her medical team that she was in recovery because the discharging physician did not have that information. That night, Jessie passed away in her sleep from an opioid overdose.”
Grubb’s death could have been prevented, the senators from West Virginia said, if her treatment records would have been integrated into her medical records.
The senators also praised the commission’s interim report for including a recommendation to “better align patient privacy laws specific to addiction with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) …”
West Virginia has been one of the worst hit states in the country when it comes to opioid overdoses. The senators said in the letter that in 2016 more than 700 West Virginians suffered from an opioid overdose.