During each of the last three years more than 100,000 people have died from drug overdoses in the United States. During this same time period, there has been a significant increase in patients suffering from mental health conditions. Today in the US, nearly 50 million patients are prescribed medications for mental health conditions, and that number is growing. Many of these medications are scheduled drugs / controlled substances. Drug testing is a critical tool to help monitor medication adherence for patients taking these medications. Drug testing can help in establishing a baseline for patients and help identify medication use or non-use, detect use of illicit substances, and help to prevent potential drug-drug interactions and harmful poly-substance use. Today’s Topics in Drug Testing podcast episode will cover:

• Overview of the status of mental health in the US and mental health medication prescribing
• The role of drug testing in helping to monitor medication adherence for mental health and other controlled medications as well as identify illicit substance use and potential, harmful drug-drug interactions
• Implementing a responsible drug monitoring protocol in your practice, including how to test, who to test, what drugs to test for, and what frequency to test

You may download a PDF version of this presentation here >> To listen to other podcasts in our Topics in Drug Testing series, please visit QuestDrugTesting.com. At Quest Diagnostics, we are committed to providing you results and insights to support your clinical decisions.

Drug testing plays a critical role in combating the drug misuse epidemic. There are 2 main methods of clinical drug testing: presumptive testing, which includes rapid point-of-care (POC) devices as well as more sensitive laboratory immunoassays; and definitive testing, which uses highly complex laboratory instruments to identify and quantify prescription medications, illicit substances, and specific parent drugs and their metabolites, often missed by POC testing.

In today’s podcast episode, Quest Drug Monitoring & Toxicology experts will cover:

• Overview of the different types of drug testing
• Limitations of point-of-care drug testing
• Quest best practices for responsible drug testing

You may download a PDF version of this presentation here >>

To listen to other podcasts in our Topics in Drug Testing series, please visit QuestDrugTesting.com. At Quest Diagnostics, we are committed to providing you results and insights to support your clinical decisions.

Today’s episode is with Quest Diagnostics senior medical advisor, Dr Jeff Gudin, and Dr Jack Kain, director and medical science liaison for the Quest Drug Monitoring and Toxicology business.

The podcast will cover:

• Overview of the new Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) blood test from Quest 
• Clinical Utility of PEth blood testing for Alcohol detection 
• Benefits of Peth blood testing vs urine testing with ethyl glucuronide (EtG) and ethyl sulfate (EtS)

You may download a PDF version of this presentation here >>

To listen to other podcasts in our Topics in Drug Testing series, please visit QuestDrugTesting.com.

At Quest Diagnostics, we are committed to providing you results and insight to support your clinical decisions.