Developing Competence and Performance Skills to Minimize the Risk of Prescription Opioid Misuse

Developing Competence and Performance Skills to Minimize the Risk of Prescription Opioid Misuse

Target Audience: Health Professional Students

The prescription drug epidemic continues to provide steady and consistent evidence that the health care system has not adequately prepared health professionals. To stem the prescription drug epidemic and end the consequences of overdoses, admissions, and destroyed lives, health professionals need the skills to intervene with patients in pain and to utilize opioid prescription drugs in a thoughtful manner. The ever worsening numbers belie a system that is not meeting this need.

This program is designed to educate all health professional students and residents with the core skills to end the epidemic. At the same time, students and residents will acquire essential skills associated with working with patients as partners, staying alert to problems and being aware of the dangers of addiction.

Our program provides a learning and shared experience environment for health professional students to enhance their skills related to the use of opioids in pain assessment and control, specifically focusing on communication and best practice skills to enhance treatment, avoiding diversion and misuse of medications, and recognizing opioid prescription drug addiction.

Curriculum

  1. Following a Standard Approach based on Best Practice: Assessment of Acute and Chronic Pain (Available)
  2. Using the Interview to Guide the Diagnostic Process: Obtaining a History for the Patient with Chronic Pain (Available)
  3. Integrated Approach to Healthcare Treatment: Treating the Patient with Pain as a Team (In Development)
  4. Varieties of Pain Treatments: Choosing a Treatment That is Right for a Patient with Pain (In Development)
  5. Risks and Benefits of Medication: Effects, Side Effects, and Risks of Opioid Medication (In Development)
  6. Variation between Medications in the Same Category: Choosing the Right Opioid (In Development)
  7. Identifying and Responding to Aberrant Behaviors with Opioid Treatment (In Development)
Sally

Target Audience: Practicing Health Professionals