The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care has released an opioid stewardship toolkit to help providers reduce the amount of unnecessarily prescribed opioids to lessen the risk of patient overdose.
The toolkit is aligned with the CDC's guidelines on opioid prescribing. Materials in the toolkit include resources for calculating safe opioid dosage, a pain assessment tool, a checklist for determining the need for long-term opioid therapy, a surgical care checklist and advice for discussing alternative pain management strategies with patients.
"To address the opioid epidemic, we must go to one of sources of the problem — provider prescribing," said Naomi Kuznets, PhD, vice president and senior director of the AAAHC Institute in an emailed release. "We want to inform providers on the causes behind chronic opioid use and overdose, and present research-based guidelines on prescribing safer dosage."
To purchase the toolkit, click here.
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