Opioid Prescription Management Toolkit for Chronic Pain
Posted about 9 years ago by Amy O'Meara
This announcement has 2 attachments:
Opioid Prescription Management Toolkit for Chronic Pain
Sustainable Solutions for Vermont: Practice Fast Track
What is this toolkit and why was it created?
This toolkit is a collection of best practice strategies for managing opioid prescriptions in primary care (and other) ambulatory settings. The strategies resulted from a two-year project (The Opioid Prescribing Quality Improvement Project, 2012-2014) to identify the most helpful methods used to create predictable and well-managed opioid prescribing patterns for physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants and their patients.
What are some of the best practice strategies for managing opioid prescriptions?
New regulations around the prescribing of chronic opioids require the use of consent forms/treatment agreements and use of the prescription monitoring system. The standard of care supported by boards of medical practice across the country recommend, under certain circumstances, a variety of practice strategies to safely prescribe and monitor chronic opioid treatment. These strategies include assessing risk for misuse, use of pill counts and urine drug testing, best-practice documentation, standardizing prescribing intervals to minimize communication issues between the patient, office staff, and prescriber, and others.
What are some of the results from the opioid prescribing two-year project?
All ten practices enrolled in project reported positive results from the best practice strategies they chose to implement from the toolkit. The strategies helped prescribers standardize their approach and increase confidence in managing opioid prescriptions, helped practices change their support systems, and increased provider and staff satisfaction regarding the way opioid prescriptions are managed.
Who is the target audience for this toolkit?
This toolkit is intended for ambulatory care practices who leaders, providers, and staff want to improve the process of managing opioid prescriptions for their chronic pain, non-palliative care patients.
Where can I find a copy of the toolkit?
The toolkit is posted on the UVM Office of Primary Care and AHEC Program website at uvm.edu/medicine/ahec