CDC’s New Quality Improvement and Care Coordination Resource

Implementing the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain

Providers wrote approximately 4.45 billion opioid prescriptions in 2016—with wide variation across states. In addition, almost 1.8 million Americans, aged 12 or older, either abused or were dependent on prescription opioids in 2016. Improving the way opioids are prescribed through clinical practice guidelines can ensure patients have access to safer, more effective pain treatment while reducing the number of people who misuse or overdose from prescription opioids.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control has developed and released the Quality Improvement and Care Coordination: Implementing the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. The quality improvement (QI) measures provided in the resource are meant to be flexible so that healthcare systems and practice leaders can pick interventions that will work best for their practice and patient population. They are offered as voluntary measures that could help incorporate the evidence contained in CDC’s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in clinical workflow. The purpose of the resource is to encourage careful and selective use of long-term opioid therapy in the context of managing chronic pain through:

1. Evidence-based prescribing,
2. Quality improvement (QI) measures to advance the integration of the guideline into clinical practice,
3. Practice-level strategies to improve care coordination; and
4. A resource toolkit

To access the resource and supporting materials, visit this website.

Learn More:

• CDC’s Quality Improvement and Care Coordination Resource
• CDC Opioid Overdose
• CDC Opioid Data
• Annual Surveillance Summary Report 2018