Leveraging a Learning Collaborative Model to Develop and Pilot Quality Measures to Improve Opioid Prescribing in the...

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medicine
• Public Health
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Opioid use disorder is a significant public health concern.
• Emergency departments (EDs) play a critical role in managing pain and opioid prescribing.
• The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) launched the Emergency Medicine Quality Network (E-QUAL) Opioid Initiative to address these issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and assess the feasibility of quality measures for opioid prescribing in community emergency departments.
• To promote evidence-based practices for managing patients with opioid use disorder.
• To reduce opioid-related harms while ensuring safe analgesia.

Main Methods:

• Convened experts to identify and design opioid prescribing measures.
• Collected performance data from 370 community EDs participating in the 2019 E-QUAL collaborative.
• Evaluated measures related to opioid administration, alternatives, prescription details, and co-prescribing.

Main Results:

• Successfully developed and implemented 6 potential measures for evaluating opioid analgesic prescribing.
• Collected initial performance data from a national sample of community EDs.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of assessing opioid prescribing practices in rural and community ED settings.

Conclusions:

• The developed measures provide a framework for evaluating opioid prescribing in diverse ED settings.
• This initiative represents a crucial step in assessing opioid prescribing quality in community and rural emergency departments.
• The findings support broader implementation of quality improvement initiatives for opioid management in EDs nationwide.