Just 25% of physicians feel very confident managing a patient’s opioid therapy
A recent study conducted by Boston University School of Medicine surveyed 779 physicians who are registered with the DEA to prescribe Schedule II and III narcotics. The results were staggering, especially when taken in the context of our current opioid addiction epidemic in the United States.
Most alarming of the findings is that only 25% of the respondents indicated they are very confident in their ability to safely manage patients on opioid analgesics. While over half of physicians have implemented support systems to help better manage opioid patients, the remainder pointed to lack of support staff or time as top barriers to implementing the necessary safety protocols.
A few of the things mentioned that physicians can do to increase their confidence in prescribing include familiarization with opioid prescribing indications, emergency treatment prescribing protocols, and use of an opioid prescribing checklist.
When developing our suite of products, we realized all these were issues related to opioid prescribing that hampered a physician’s ability to adhere to evidence-based algorithms for use of these drugs. To take the research and time burden off providers, we created a dashboard with prescribing information, clinical pathways, outcome measurements.