Five different solutions to mitigate overprescribing opioid medications.

Abstract

The University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine took 5 distinct actions to mitigate the amount of opioids prescribed at the dental school between the years 2016-2020. This retrospective study evaluated a comprehensive 5-step quality improvement strategy which was implemented to decrease opioid prescribing. a) development of a Dental Pain Management Protocol, b) implementation of the protocol with pre-doctoral students, c) incorporating the results of a Master's project that determined the actual postoperative pain after periodontal/oral surgical procedures, d) development of a favorite electronic prescription list, and e) creation of patient instructions to allow for information on nonopioid analgesic use after dental procedures to be disseminated to the patient. There was a significant decrease (P=0.05) in the opioid prescribing trend with the implementation of these 5 actions, resulting in an overall 68.8% decrease for prescription writing of opioids and a 78.6% decrease of opioid pills over this 3 year period. Simple guidelines and protocols resulted in a drastic decrease in opioid prescribing, with limited negative feedback from faculty and patients.