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OrthoCarolina launches outreach, research program to curb opioid epidemic
In 2017, the HHS declared a nationwide public health emergency regarding the opioid crisis. To prevent future opioid abuse, OrthoCarolina and the OrthoCarolina Research Institute have implemented the Carolinas Opioid Reduction Effort project, which includes the nation’s first comprehensive study designed to assess the efficacy of opioid-free pain management for patients.
“Anyone that watches the news sees that opioid abuse is an epidemic in health care in the United States right now ... but there is not a lot of attention paid to what are we going to do about it. What solutions are we putting forth to eliminate opioid abuse in this country?” Nady Hamid, MD, of the OrthoCarolina Shoulder and Elbow Center, told Healio.com/Orthopedics. “The [Carolinas Opioid Reduction Effort] CORE project focuses on investigating novel and innovative alternatives to our traditional pain management protocols, so we can eliminate opioid use.”
Along with community outreach projects, as well as physician and patient education about the dangers of and alternatives to opioids, Hamid and colleagues performed a pilot study that showed patients enrolled in an opioid-free protocol following shoulder replacement surgery experienced equal or less pain compared with patients enrolled in a traditional opioid-centered medication protocol.
“It is important to know that when we say opioid-free that it is completely opioid-free, meaning the patients do not receive any narcotics or opioids during the surgery, before [or] immediately after and they do not get prescriptions for opioids,” Hamid said.
With promising results from the pilot study, Hamid and colleagues launched a level 1, randomized controlled trial that included 700 patients and approximately 30 investigators.
“We are looking at various procedures that include shoulder replacement, hip replacement, cervical spine fusion, knee arthroscopy, hand [carpometacarpal] CMC arthroplasty and finally would be bunion corrective surgery in the foot, so we tried to touch on every specialty in orthopedics,” Hamid said.
According to Hamid, the study will take approximately 3 years to complete and he hopes it will provide opioid-free protocols to recommend to orthopedic surgeons around the country.
“Our goal is to ultimately have opioid-free protocols that we can recommend to our colleagues around the country to have a proven alternative so that patients can recover from orthopedic surgery comfortably, but also safely as well, without having to deal with the pitfalls of opioids and deal with the strong addiction potential of these medications,” he said. – by Casey Tingle
References:
About the U.S. opioid epidemic. Available at: www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/. Accessed March 26, 2018.
Leas D, et al. Paper #62. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting; March 6-10, 2018; New Orleans.
Disclosure: Hamid reports no relevant financial disclosures.