NQF Issues Guidance on Opioid Prescribing Practices

The National Qualify Forum (NQF) recently released new guidelines to support safe and appropriate opioid prescribing to manage patients’ pain, entitled “National Quality Partners Playbook: Opioid Stewardship.” This marks the latest in the growing number of organizations providing input on strategies for addressing the opioid epidemic and helping to shape potential policy changes and federal and state level investments under consideration.  Developed with input from over forty experts and national stakeholders from the public and private sectors, the guidance identifies several fundamental actions to support sustainable opioid stewardship programs, including: Promoting leadership commitment and culture, including allocating resources and support from organizational leaders. Implementing organizational policies to support evidence-based approaches to multimodal pain management. Advancing clinical knowledge, expertise, and practice to ensure clinicians are trained in and understand the science of pain, evidence-based pain management strategies, and patient communication techniques. Enhancing patient and family caregiver education and engagement so they are fully informed about risks and benefits of appropriate pain management options and are active participants in decisions about pain management plans. Tracking, monitoring, and reporting performance data on opioid prescribing, patient-reported outcom...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs