​Opioid Management for Pain in the Post Pandemic Era

The COVID19 pandemic has disrupted multiple aspects of healthcare including delaying elective surgery, reducing access to interdisciplinary pain interventions and specialist physician care and closure of clinics. In this event we will provide a historical overview of the landscape of opioid prescribing and contextualize our current state. We will describe the impact of policy and the pandemic on opioid use, with a focus on the impact to people living with chronic pain. We will then describe two distinct opioid prescribing and stewardship models. Finally, we will also take a close look at the importance of the language we use when discussing opioid therapy and the impact that language might have in exacerbating stigma or facilitating more safe and effective use of opioids for pain management.

Learning Objectives: 

1) Describe how the COVID pandemic changed the landscape of opioid use and its impact on pain care.

2) Explore models of care…