New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery developed a mandatory narcotics-prescribing education program, which led to a significant decrease in excessive opioid prescriptions after ambulatory orthopedic surgery, according to an article in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
In November 2016, all hospital prescribers completed a 1-hour mandatory opioid education program. Postoperative opioid guidelines were then developed and disseminated in February 2017. All postoperative narcotic prescriptions after ambulatory procedures performed by hand, sports and foot and ankle surgeons were assessed over four months before and after the intervention.
Overall, there was a significant decrease in pills and total oral morphine equivalents prescribed after consensus-based guidelines were disseminated for the sports and hand services. The decrease in pills prescribed in the post-intervention cohort amounts to nearly 30,000 fewer opioid pills prescribed per year.
There was no significant change in either the number of pills or the oral morphine equivalents prescribed after any of the procedure performed by the foot and ankle service.
"We urge initiatives by national orthopedic organizations to develop and promote education programs and procedure and disease-specific opioid-prescribing guidelines," the study authors concluded.