The opioid epidemic is an unfortunate and all too familiar topic in healthcare. For many patients, opioid use disorder (OUD) typically starts with a seemingly harmless opioid prescription for pain management in an outpatient or hospital setting. Predisposing genetic and environmental factors to addiction, combined with the high abuse potential of opiates, can drive patients to seek additional opioids. This can perpetuate the cycle of addiction and increase patients’risk of turning to illicit sources.
Although the stigma around opioid use disorder has decreased significantly over the last five years, we will continue to lose the war against the opioid epidemic without an aligned and decisive strategy. CHS recently established an Opioid Stewardship Task Force (OSTF) to do just that. One of the first goals of the OSTF was to help CHS hospitals initiate or align their opioid stewardship programs to submit new or renewed stewardship charters and letters of commitment. OSTF has identified key interdisciplinary champions to help cultivate significant change in clinical practice and organizational culture across the health system.
The OSTF also engaged a variety of stakeholders to increase the likelihood of success with health system and facility program goals. Informatics, pharmacy, nursing, risk management and other clinical service line partners have been collaborating on a targeted multimodal pain management initiative. OSTF hopes to continue driving the message of interdisciplinary partnership and deploy multifactorial strategies to 1) identify and address opioid safety gaps; 2) align with pain management standards per The Joint Commission standards; 3) outline best clinical practices; and 4) access and share helpful educational resources.
“As a medical community, it is our primary responsibility to do no harm. And, while we can’t remove all opioids from the care we provide, we can use them more judiciously to produce better, safer outcomes for our patients,” says Merit Health Wesley ED Director and task force member Daniel Crane, MD.