Goal-Directed Opioid Stewardship in Acute-on-Chronic Nonmalignant Pain Management

Prescription opioids were identified as being responsible for 14,000 deaths in 2019, with 9.3 million people admitting to misuse in 2020. This quality improvement project implemented the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI) guideline on pain management in acute care to decrease opioid prescriptions >90 morphine milliequivalents for acute-on-chronic pain. The change to current practice included completion of comprehensive functional assessments and opioid risk screening tools to guide a goal-directed shared decision-making discussion with patients. There was a statistically significant decrease in morphine milliequivalents per prescription (t43 = 2.579, P = .013).