OPIOIDS
New direction
for College's
opioid strategy
C
Guide
Respond
ouncil has approved a new direc-
tion in its opioid strategy – one
that squarely puts the focus
on the promotion of quality
improvement.
“This revised strategy will see us put-
ting more of our energies into ensuring
that physicians have the information they
need to prescribe appropriately,” said Dr.
Steven Bodley, College President.
“We will provide physicians with
feedback in their assessments,
encourage them to access their
Assess
own prescribing data and promote
educational resources,” he said.
The opioid crisis persists, and
Communicate
the College will maintain a clear
position and approach to opioids
issues and we will continue to
respond to prescribing issues. The
College, however, won’t be making an ad-
ditional request for data from the Narcotics
Monitoring System (MMS) at this time.
In 2016, the College initiated 84 investiga-
tions based on data received from NMS.
More than half of the cases investigated
resulted in some form of action. In most of
these cases, the College ordered remediation.
Two physicians were referred to Discipline.
The lessons learned from the work com-
pleted from the first phase of our opioid
strategy will inform our work going forward.
Under the new strategy, the College will
continue to advocate for:
ll physicians having real time access to
A
patient medication histories
ll physicians having access to comparative
A
prescribing data (e.g., MyPractice reports)
he establishment of a provincial prescription
T
monitoring program
“I believe that a strategy that focuses on
supporting physicians to prescribe opioids
appropriately through communication about
resources, advocating for physician access to
data and integrating opioid prescribing into
assessments will benefit the vast majority of
physicians,” said Dr. Bodley.
ISSUE 3, 2018 DIALOGUE
15