Clinical Cases Podcast Series

This podcast series, (11 episodes) are case-based and recorded for self-paced listening. Dr. Stader and Dr. Duncan will discuss management of chronic opioid therapy via a real-life patient case, applying best practice opioid prescribing guidelines from the Compass Opioid Stewardship project. The topics discussed include introducing an opioid stewardship framework, building therapeutic alliance with the patient, reframing pain and introducing pain psychology, addressing medication risks, naloxone and overdose education, and tapering conversations. Key practices for tapering opioids and benzodiazepines are also addressed, along with appropriate risk management strategies

Target Audience
Primary care practice clinicians, internal medicine clinicians, chronic pain management providers

Learning Objectives

Identify when it is appropriate to continue chronic opioid therapy for a patient vs. taper or rotation to a safer agent
Discuss how to build therapeutic alliance with a patient receiving chronic opioid therapy
Recall nonpharmacologic and nonopioid alternatives for the treatment of pain and ongoing pain management
Select the safest agent, dosage, and duration for a patient identified as benefiting from opioid therapy
Recognize and manage the risks of chronic opioid therapy and other controlled substances
Apply harm reduction best practices including overdose education and naloxone
Recommend appropriate tapering strategies for patients co-prescribed opioids and benzodiazepines

Donald Stader

Dr. Don Stader is a board-certified emergency and addiction medicine physician, who works at Swedish Medical Center and Lincoln Health in Colorado. Don is also the founder and Executive Director of The Naloxone Project. He is the founder and past chair of Colorado ACEP's Opioid Task Force, the Editor-in-Chief of COACEP's 2017 Opioid Prescribing & Treatment Guidelines, and the CO's CURE’s guidelines on pain control and opioid stewardship. Don served for over 2 years as the Senior Pain Management & Opioid Policy Physician Adviser for the Colorado Hospital Association and serves on multiple national and local committees addressing the opioid epidemic in Colorado and across the nation. He is the current chair of ACEP’s Pain & Addiction Management Section. He is the Medical Director of the Compass Opioid Stewardship Program, a nationwide initiative to improve pain control, prescribing habits, addiction treatment and opioid stewardship for primary care clinicians.

Rachael Duncan

Rachael Duncan, PharmD, BCPS, BCCP, is a Colorado-based clinical pharmacist board-certified in pharmacotherapy and critical care pharmacy. She has spent the past decade focused on policy, advocacy, and educational work surrounding opioid stewardship and addiction treatment at both the state and national level. Rachael is the Chief Clinical Officer of Epifluence, where she is Program Director of the Maternal Overdose Matters (MOMs+) Initiative and Associate Director of The Naloxone Project (TNP). She leads several educational and quality improvement initiatives focused on helping hospitals and health systems build addiction treatment infrastructure, with a special focus on rural and frontier communities. She is the author and editor of multiple state- and nation-wide guidelines around opioid stewardship, alternatives to opioids (ALTO) for pain management, and MOUD for addiction treatment, championed ALTO and MOUD across Colorado EDs with the Colorado Hospital Association, and published the first peer-reviewed paper on ALTOs in the ED. Rachael’s clinical experience is in ED and hospital pharmacy.

Continuing Medical Education (CME)

Accreditation: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Iowa Medical Society (IMS). Compass Healthcare Collaborative is accredited by the IMS to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Designation: Compass designates this live activity for a maximum of 3.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Commercial Support: This activity was developed without support from any ineligible company. *The ACCME defines ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Note: The ACCME does not consider providers of clinical service directly to patients to be commercial interests unless the provider of clinical services is owned, or controlled by, and ACCME defined ineligible company.

Disclosure: Compass adheres to the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. The content of this activity is not related to products or the business lines of an ACCME-defined ineligible company. None of the planners or moderators for this educational activity have relevant financial relationships to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing products used by or on patients.

Note: AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ are accepted for nursing and other healthcare discipline license renewal purposes, provided the topic is relevant to the applicant’s field or discipline. After participating, you will receive a Certificate of Attendance detailing the number of AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ you can claim. This certificate is provided for self-reporting requirements and must be submitted to your state board for license renewal.

Available Credit
3.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™