Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and the Massachusetts Health and Hospitals Association launched a pain stewardship program to increase the use of multimodal analgesia for acute pain management, according to a press release issued Wednesday.
The program is designed to educate hospital stakeholders on multimodal analgesia to reduce reliance on opioid prescriptions, while simultaneously improving patient satisfaction and length of stay.
"Massachusetts hospitals and clinicians have made significant improvements in reducing overall opioid usage, as well as educating our patients on associated risk factors and proper disposal of opioids. Our providers are also committed to developing alternative pain management practices that improve patient satisfaction, safety and outcomes," said Patricia Noga, PhD, RN, MHA's vice president of clinical affairs. "The pain stewardship program emphasizes nonopioid analgesics and techniques as first-line therapy that is a balanced acute pain management practice, which we believe will assist in addressing the opioid crisis impacting our communities."
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