Factors That Affect Opioid Quality Improvement Initiatives in Primary Care: Insights from Ten Health Systems

To improve patient safety and pain management, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain (CDC Guideline). Recognizing that issuing a guideline alone is insufficient for transforming practice, CDC supported an Opioid Quality Improvement (QI) Collaborative, consisting of 10 health care systems that represented more than 120 practices across the United States. The research team identified factors related to implementation success using domains described by the integrated Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (iPARIHS) implementation science framework.

Data from interviews, notes from check-in calls, and documents provided by systems were used. The researchers collected data throughout the project through interviews, meeting notes, and documents.

The iPARIHS framework was used to identify factors that affected implementation related to the context, innovation (implementing recommendations from the CDC Guideline), recipient (clinicians), and facilitation (QI team). Contextual characteristics were at the clinic, health system, and broader external context, including staffing and leadership support, previous QI experience, and state laws. Characteristics of the innovation were its adaptability and challenges operationalizing the measures. Recipient characteristics included belief in the importance of the innovation but challenges engaging in the initiative. Finally, facilitation characteristics driving differential outcomes included staffing and available time of the QI team, the ability to make changes, and experience with QI.

As health care systems continue to implement the CDC Guideline, these insights can advance successful implementation efforts by describing common implementation challenges and identifying strategies to prepare for and overcome them.