Salimah H. Meghani, PhD, MBE, RN, FAAN
Salimah H. Meghani has a long-standing commitment to advancing the field of palliative care through scholarship and service. During 2005-2007, she served on the Pennsylvania Department of Aging’s state task force that assessed the status of palliative care in the state and formulated recommendations for improving advanced illness care for Pennsylvanians. Between 2007-2009, Dr. Meghani served on the Pennsylvania Patient Life-Sustaining Wishes Advisory Committee. This committee was appointed by the PA Secretary of Health to assess the feasibility of implementing Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment paradigm in Pennsylvania. This effort led to the endorsement of Pennsylvania POLST to ensure that seriously ill patients’ treatment wishes are documented and honored across healthcare settings. Dr. Meghani served as a member of the Institute of Medicine (now NAM) Study Committee that authored the report, Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. Dr. Meghani was recently appointed on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine planning committee on Pain and Symptom Management for People with Serious Illness in the Context of the Opioid Crisis. She is one the core-co leads on the NIH/NINR-funded Palliative Care Research Cooperative Group.
“My program of research combines an investigation of palliative care and social determinants of health– two layers of vulnerability embedded in the context of the complex healthcare system. I am committed to helping students and fellows develop skills and the scholarly tools to broach this important area of research.”
Education
- PhD, University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing , 2005
- MBE, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, 2005
- MSN, University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing , 2001
- BSN, The Aga Khan University, School of Nursing , 1997
Teaching
Dr. Meghani teaches two core courses in Penn Nursing’s Palliative Care Minor. For many years, she also taught the doctoral core course, Quantitative Research Design and Methods. Preparing the next generation of nursing leaders and researchers is one of the things Dr. Meghani values most. In the core courses that she teaches in the Palliative Care Minor, she engages students in appraising and critiquing existing healthcare delivery paradigms and re-imagining workable alternative models for the future.
Research
Dr. Meghani’s main research interest involves palliative care, specifically understanding and addressing sources of disparities in symptom management and outcomes among vulnerable populations. Her earlier work explicated sources of racial disparities in cancer pain outcomes (NIH/NINR 1K01NR010886) and clarified the role of patient-provider factors contributing to shaping preferences and adherence funded by highly competitive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Challenge Grant (NIH 1RC1NR011591).This longitudinal, interdisciplinary study leveraged methods from behavioral economics and patient-reported outcomes to understand sources of clinical disparities, preference-formation, consequent medication taking behavior, and clinical outcomes among cancer patients. Dr. Meghani recently led an American Cancer Society-funded research project to elicit patients-family dyad generated ideas to improve cancer pain management and to convert ideas to actionable interventions specific to decreasing disparities (ACS #128779-PEP-15-186-01). In 2019, Dr. Meghani was awarded a large multi-year R01 grant (NIH/NINR R01NR017853). This prospective cohort study will generate new knowledge about longitudinal pain, opioid self-management trajectories, and associated outcomes among cancer outpatients in the context of daily pain, pain flares, key clinical moderators and covariates. This study can have a sustained impact on the science of oncology pain and symptom management, specially best practices in the context of opioid crisis.
Selected Career Highlights
- Member, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine planning committee, Pain and Symptom Management for People with Serious Illness in the Context of the Opioid Crisis
- Member, Institute of Medicine Study Committee: Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life
- Reviewer, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Report: Assessing Progress on the IOM Report The Future of Nursing
- Former Chair, American Pain Society, Pain and Disparities Shared Interest Group
- Editorial Board, Pain Medicine: The official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
- Fellow, American Academy of Nursing
- Dean’s Award for Exemplary Teaching, Penn School of Nursing
- Barbara J. Lowery Doctoral Student Organization Faculty Award
Selected Publications
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Meghani SH, Vapiwala N. Bridging the Critical Divide in Pain Management Guidelines From the CDC, NCCN, and ASCO for Cancer Survivors. JAMA Oncol. 2018 Oct 1;4(10):1323-1324. doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.1574. PubMed PMID: 29852051.
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O’Connor NR, Junker P, Appel SM, Stetson RL, Rohrbach J, Meghani SH. Palliative Care Consultation for Goals of Care and Future Acute Care Costs: A Propensity-Matched Study. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2018 Jul;35(7):966-971. doi: 10.1177/1049909117743475. Epub 2017 Nov 23. PubMed PMID: 29169247.
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Meghani SH, MacKenzie MA, Morgan B, Kang Y, Wasim A, Sayani S. Clinician-Targeted Mobile Apps in Palliative Care: A Systematic Review. J Palliat Med. 2017 Oct;20(10):1139-1147. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2017.0070. Epub 2017 May 30. Review. PubMed PMID: 28557549.
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Meghani, S. H. (2016). Intended Target of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Opioid Guidelines. JAMA Oncology, 2(9), 1243. (PMID: 27468172). 10.1001/jamaoncol.2016.2185.
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Meghani, S.H. & Knafl, G. (2016). Patterns of analgesic adherence predict health care utilization among outpatients with cancer pain. Patient Preference and Adherence, 10, 81-98. (PMID: 26869772; PMCID: PMC4734825)
- Meghani, S.H., Thompson, A.M., Chittams, J., Bruner, D.W., & Riegel, B. (2015). Adherence to analgesics for cancer pain: A comparative study of African Americans and Whites using an electronic monitoring device. Journal of Pain, 16(9), 825-835. (PMID: 26080042).10.1016/j.jpain.2015.05.009
- Meghani, S.H., & Hinds, P.S. (2015). Policy Brief: The Institute of Medicine Report Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. Nursing Outlook, 63(1), 51-59. (PMID: 25645482).10.1016/j.outlook.2014.11.007
- Meghani, S.H., Kang, Y., Chittams, J., McMenamin, E., Mao, J., & Fudin, J. (2014). African Americans with cancer pain are more likely to receive an analgesic with toxic metabolite despite clinical risks: A mediation analysis study. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 32(25), 2773-2779. (PMID: 25049323).10.1200/JCO.2013.54.7992
- Meghani, S.H., Byun, E., & Gallagher, R.M. (2012). Time to take stock: A Meta-Analysis and systematic review of pain treatment disparities in the United States. Pain Medicine, 13(2), 150-174. (PMID: 22239747).10.1111/j.1526-4637.2011.01310.x
- Meghani, S.H., Polomano, R., Tait, R., Vallerand, A., Anderson, K., & Gallagher, R.M. (2012). Advancing a national agenda to eliminate disparities in pain care: Directions for health policy, education, practice, and research.. Pain Medicine, 13(1), 5-28. (PMID: 22142450).10.1111/j.1526-4637.2011.01289.x
Related News
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Meghani Appointed to NASEM Committee
Penn Nursing ’s Salimah Meghani, PhD, MBE, RN, FAAN , Associate Professor of Nursing and Term Chair of Palliative Care in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences , and a member in the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health , has been appointed to a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine planning committee.
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Penn Researchers Influence CDC’s Clarification on Prescribing Opioids for Cancer Pain
To reduce the number of people who may misuse, abuse, or overdose from opioids, multiple national agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have published guidelines to improve the way opioids are prescribed. Yet some of these guidelines have caused confusion and misapplication among clinicians and unintendedly limited treatment of pain for people with cancer.
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Opioid Self-management Practices and Potential Safety Risks Among Patients with Cancer
Despite a national opioid crisis, prescribed opioid analgesics remain a viable option for pain management for patients with cancer. In effect, patients with cancer represent one of the few groups excluded from most state legislation and policy initiatives on prescribing opioids as well as from opioid stewardship programs of many health systems. However, little is understood about oncology patients’ opioid self-management practices and potential safety risk that may stem from these practices.