Standard Opioid Prescribing Schedules Toolkit
| Resource Type: | Toolkit |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Organization/Source: | NC Healthcare Foundation |
| Tags: Provider Education, Safe Prescribing | |
Hospitals have an enormous opportunity to ensure safe prescribing of opioids is institutionalized through standard opioid prescribing schedules (SOPS). The North Carolina Healthcare Foundation has created a Standard Opioid Prescribing Schedules Toolkit based on the data-driven and highly successful model created by UNC Health. This new toolkit offers hospitals standards to adopt across 90 SOPS — populations including surgical, emergency medicine, primary care, obstetrics, and pediatrics.
NCHF also created a resource specifically for Critical Access and Small Rural hospitals on challenges and recommendations when implementing SOPS.
Standardized prescribing practices and other opioid stewardship policies were shown to be effective in a study conducted at a South Carolina health system. The health system implemented opioid stewardship policies including non-opioid medication during surgery, decrease of available opioid dosage vials in operating rooms, standardization of opioid in-patient practices through electronic health record alerts, and limit to post-surgery opioid supply, and analyzed the impact. The study abstract and results be found here: Evaluation of Policies Limiting Opioid Exposure on Opioid Prescribing and Patient Pain in Opioid-Naive Patients Undergoing Elective Surgery in a Large American Health System.