Current interventions to promote safe and appropriate pain management

Describe patient-, clinician-, system-, and community-level interventions for pain management developed and employed by 9 healthcare systems across the United States and report on lessons learned from the implementation of these interventions.

The high cost associated with pain coupled with the frequent use of opioid analgesics as primary treatment options has made novel pain management strategies a necessity. Interventions that target multiple levels within healthcare are needed to help combat the opioid epidemic and improve strategies to manage chronic pain. Patient-level interventions implemented ranged from traditional paper-based educational tools to videos, digital applications, and peer networks. Clinician-level interventions focused on providing education, ensuring proper follow-up care, and establishing multidisciplinary teams that included prescribers, pharmacists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. System- and community-level interventions included metric tracking and analytics, electronic health record tools, lockbox distribution for safe storage, medication return bins for removal of opioids, risk assessment tool utilization, and improved access to reversal agents.

Strategies to better manage pain can be implemented within health systems at multiple levels and on many fronts; however, these changes are most effective when accepted and widely used by the population for which they are targeted.