There is a lack of evidence that long-term opioid use offers benefit for noncancer pain and an abundance of evidence of harm. In 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain to encourage safe and effective alternatives to opioids, discontinuation of opioids when patients do not resume normal activities and prudent dosing strategies. However, poor guideline adherence is a general concern and may impede uptake. Our prior studies have used insights from behavioral economics and social psychology to increase guideline adherence. The objective of the R21 pilot phase of the Application of Economics & Social psychology to improve Opioid Prescribing Safety (AESOPS) is to develop and test novel behavioral nudges to encourage adherence to pain and CDC guidelines for opioid prescribing for persons with noncancer pain. At the time of opioid prescribing, clinicians will be prompted with an EHR nudge when the prescribing history for the patient falls into one of the following three mutually exclusive categories: Opioid naïve, At-risk for long term use, or Long-term opioid recipient. The primary outcome is average weekly morphine milligram equivalents (MME) prescribed per-clinician.
There is a lack of evidence that long-term opioid use offers benefit for noncancer pain and an abundance of evidence of harm. The objective of the R21 pilot phase of the Application of Economics & Social psychology to improve Opioid Prescribing Safety (AESOPS) is to develop and test novel behavioral nudges to encourage adherence to pain and CDC guidelines for opioid prescribing for persons with noncancer pain. Interventions will leverage the electronic health record (EHR) to discourage unnecessary opioid prescribing through the application of behavioral insights-empirically-tested social and psychological interventions that affect choice.