Opioid Safety for Hospital Clinicians

This website from the University of Massachusetts’s Division of Medical Toxicology contains several training videos on opioid safety for hospital providers. The 5 instructional videos are intended to educate providers on common pitfalls and evidence-based strategies for safe administration of opioids in the inpatient, hospital setting. Continue reading

Evidence Brief: Benefits and Harms of Long-term Opioid Dose Reduction or Discontinuation in Patients with Chronic Pain – Supplementary Materials

The supplementary materials to support the systematic review of the evidence for long term outcomes of tapering opioid doses in patients on long term opioid therapy for chronic pain from the Veterans Affairs Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP). These materials include search strategies used in the systematic review, inclusion/exclusion criteria for studies reviewed, evidence tables, and quality assessment of studies included in the review. Continue reading

Evidence Brief: Benefits and Harms of Long-term Opioid Dose Reduction or Discontinuation in Patients with Chronic Pain

A systematic review of the evidence for long term outcomes of tapering opioid doses in patients on long term opioid therapy for chronic pain from the Veterans Affairs Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP). The report analyzes published studies to determine the benefits and harms for patients when tapering their opioid medications to lower doses or discontinuation and reviews whether benefits and harms vary by Continue reading

Tips for Talking about Opioids and Pain with Patients

Health care providers often request guidance on how to have conversations with patients about opioids, pain treatment, addiction and other topics that may be challenging. In this collection, we have gathered materials that provide support to providers as they have these difficult conversations. Continue reading

What Happens When You Flip the Script?

This 4 minute video from Minnesota’s Flip the Script campaign features interviews with a physician and patient about how the decision to change the patient’s opioid prescription improved the patient’s quality of life and the provider’s relationship to his patients and his practice. Continue reading