Quality Insights’ Special Innovation Opioid Project Team, in collaboration with the West Virginia University (WVU) Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and the WV Geriatric Education Center, has developed a Practice Change Package entitled Opioid Misuse and Diversion: The Big Picture; A Guide for Practice Change, to serve as resource to those who prescribe, dispense and monitor patients with chronic pain.

This guideline is:

• designed to improve patient outcomes, such as pain reduction and improved function
• based on emerging evidence, including observational studies and randomized clinical trials
• voluntary- not a prescriptive standard
• designed to improve communication between clinicians and patients about the risks and benefits of opioid therapy use when managing chronic pain