Demystifying Opioid Conversion Calculations: A Guide for Effective Dosing

Have you ever wondered if you calculated your patient’s dosage correctly?

Against a backdrop of the growing scrutiny of appropriate dosages, this textbook takes a fresh, new approach to helping health professionals strengthen care to and possibly save the lives of patients living with pain. This easy-to-understand and often humorous book is the most comprehensive to-date on opioid calculations for pain management and palliative care. It carefully walks clinicians through a five-step process for performing opioid conversion calculations in the real-world situations they often see. The book has case examples, simple charts and tables, and practice problems throughout on topics such as:

·         difficult conversions for methadone, fentanyl, PCA, and neuraxial opioid therapy

·         conversions between routes and dosage formulations of the same opioids and different opioids

·         titrating opioid dosages up and down to include dosage change and timing

·         calculating doses for rescue opioid therapy

 

Written by pain management expert Dr. Mary Lynn McPherson, the book gives helpful tips that practitioners should incorporate into their practices. It is a must for clinicians at all levels: hospice and palliative care physicians, physician’s assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists. Clinicians will come away with more confidence in doing the calculations, and higher service levels from the improvement in care.

 

 

Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, BCPS, CPE, is Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore. She has maintained a practice in both hospice (local and national) and ambulatory care her entire career. At present, Dr. McPherson is the Director of Pharmacotherapy Services at UniversityCare Waxter in Baltimore. Dr. McPherson teaches extensively in the Pharm.D. curriculum on pain management and end of life care, including didactic and experiential content. She also developed one of the first and few palliative care pharmacy residencies in the U.S.

 

Dr. McPherson serves on the Board of the Hospice Network of Maryland and is also Chairman of the Board of the American Society of Pain Educators. McPherson is a Fellow in the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists and the American Pharmacists Association. She has received many honors for her work, including the American Pharmacists Association Distinguished Achievement Award in Specialized Practice, the Maryland Pharmacists Association Innovative Practice Award, and the Maryland Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists W. Purdum Lifetime Achievement Award. She has written four books, and many book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on pain management, palliative care, and other topics.