Impact of virtual case conferences between primary care clinicians and an interdisciplinary chronic pain clinic

To assess the impact of virtual case conferences on referring primary care clinician knowledge, prescribing, and patient care practices.

Paper-based postal survey.

The USask Chronic Pain Clinic (UCPC) in Saskatoon, Sask.

All referring health professionals who participated in a USask Chronic Pain Clinic case conference between July 2023 and December 2024 were included. Participants included family physicians (87.3%, n=48 of 55) and nurse practitioners (12.7%, n=7 of 55).

The questionnaire collected data regarding participant demographic characteristics and various aspects of participants' chronic pain management knowledge, prescribing, and chronic pain care practices.

A total of 168 questionnaires were mailed and the response rate was 32.7% (n=55 of 168). Most participants found case conferences to be a useful resource to their practices (94.5%) and reported that the service helped them with the management of their patients (92.7%). Many respondents reported improved knowledge about safe opioid prescribing (70.9%) and the process for opioid tapering (49.1%). Most agreed the knowledge they acquired from the case conference had been applied to additional patients in their practice (74.5%). Many respondents also felt more confident managing chronic pain (74.5%), more confident prescribing buprenorphine-naloxone for chronic pain (41.8%), and more willing to prescribe buprenorphine-naloxone for chronic pain (36.4%). Some had even prescribed buprenorphine-naloxone for chronic pain for the first time because of the case conference (30.9%).

Case conferences between UCPC interdisciplinary chronic pain team members and referring primary care clinicians may be a valuable service to support referring providers in the care of their patients and to increase the capacity of the primary care system to manage chronic pain.