Barriers to Non-opioid Pain Management in the Cancer Patient Presenting to the Emergency Department

Acute pain is the presenting complaint of over half of all patients presenting to the MD Anderson Oncologic Emergency Department. The majority of these patients receive opioid analgesics, yet the prescribing of narcotics in the emergency department has been cited as a major contributor to the current opioid epidemic that is claiming more than 115 lives a day (1). Multi-focal health system interventions to reduce opioid overprescribing have been highly successful, with one study showing a 58% reduction across 44,000 clinical encounters over a 6 month period (2).
Source: The Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Source Type: research