First Advisor
Hessler, Karen
Date Created
8-2017
Abstract
Pain management, opioid addiction, opioid diversion, opioid overdose, and prescription fraud continue to rise to epidemic levels in the United States. As primary care continues to manage a large proportion of these patients, multiple barriers exist that prevent proper pain management. Pain management specialists are no longer available to see patients, documentation on pain management patients is lacking and sub-par, and access to the prescription drug-monitoring program (PDMP) is challenging. Recent guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2016a) indicated patients should no longer be on greater than 90-120 morphine milligram equivalents a day. These guidelines also are useful for providers to decide when to initiate opioid therapy, provide information on appropriate selection of opioids including necessary follow-up and monitoring, along with the need of screening tools to assess risk related to opioid therapy. This capstone examined pain management in primary care, ways to improve documentation, increase patient safety and prescriber adherence to CDC guidelines, as well as PDMP access and use--all in hopes of creating safe practices in primary care regarding pain management due to specialists being unavailable.
Keywords
Pain management; Opioids; Primary care
Extent
87 pages
Local Identifiers
LindekenCapstone2017
Rights Statement
Copyright is held by the author.
Recommended Citation
Lindeken, Kimberly Lynn, "Pain Management in Primary Care" (2017). Capstones & Scholarly Projects. 24.
https://digscholarship.unco.edu/capstones/24