WSHA has identified opportunities to support reducing acute opioid prescribing in rural and urban communities. One opportunity is the multi-part, multi-topic Better Prescribing Better Treatment (BPBT) Opioid Stewardship Educational Series that WSHA will begin to offer.
Approximately 75% of the 91,799 drug-overdose deaths in 2020 involved an opioid. Hospitals and health systems play a central role in reducing harm caused by the opioid crisis. Rural and urban communities are seeing opioid misuse-related harm. Hospitals can mitigate this by implementing clinical best practices around acute opioid prescribing, facilitating other activities aimed at Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) prevention and designing equitable treatment strategies.
WSHA supports, provides and promotes safe prescribing with Washington State hospital chief medical officers through coordinated dissemination of quarterly opioid prescribing feedback reports, educational forums and opioid management quality improvement.
Please contact Tina Seery or Amy Anderson with questions. (Amy Anderson)
