NWHSU Awarded Opioid Settlement Grant
NWHSU Team Will Use the Opioid Settlement Grant to Create Online Education for Opioid Avoidance
The Center for Healthcare Innovation and Policy (CHIP) team at Northwestern Health Sciences University (NWHSU) was awarded a grant by the Minnesota Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council to develop and distribute online healthcare professional continuing education courses.
The team, led by Drs. Michele Maiers, Andrea Albertson, and Chuck Sawyer, will create two courses. One course will offer modules designed to educate prescribing healthcare providers on nonpharmacologic alternatives for the management of pain including chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, exercise, yoga, and health coaching. The second course provides complementary and integrative healthcare (CIH) providers information on early detection and intervention for substance and opioid use disorders.
Courses will be made widely available to Minnesota healthcare providers at no cost. Their goal is further decreasing the prescription of clinically inappropriate opioids while supporting pain management needs of Minnesotans. Funding for this project is through the national opioid settlement in the U.S. This project expands upon NWHSU work recommending opioid settlement funding be used to increase access to nonpharmacologic treatments and support opioid settlement applications though our online toolkit.
Educating Prescribing Providers on the Value of Evidence-Based Alternatives to Opioids
Research supports a range of nonpharmacologic treatments (NPT), including chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage, and exercise or movement-based therapies. Furthermore, clinical practice guidelines recommend NPT as effective, evidence-based alternatives to opioids.
However, prescribing providers report a lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of NPT, and how to successfully refer or comanage pain patients with NPT providers.
This may contribute to low utilization of these high-value interventions and place individuals at greater risk for opioid prescription,”
notes Andrea Albertson, DC, research and policy associate at NWHSU.
Using the Opioid Settlement Grant to Train CIH Providers in Screening and Intervention
CIH providers commonly deliver NPT for patients presenting with pain. In Minnesota, an estimated 5,000 CIH providers practice across rural and urban areas. Opioid reduction strategies often exclude CIH providers, as they do not prescribe medications. CIH providers are ideally situated to screen, recognize, and facilitate referral for a range of prevention and healthcare services due to their whole-person approach to care, frequency of patient visits, and accessibility in rural areas in particular.
However, knowledge of substance misuse screening and intervention, including for opioids, is insufficient among CIH providers. Michele Maiers, DC, PhD, MPH, project lead and executive director of research and innovation at NWHSU explains:
Given the association between pain conditions and opioid use, an important gap exists for CIH providers to more effectively screen, refer, and comanage patients with substance use disorders.”
Partnering Across the State
The CHIP team has established support from state health associations that represent prescribing and non-prescribing professions. These key association partnerships are critical for disseminating the free online courses to their members. They team has begun work on this two-year project.