Program to address opioids and ‘inherited’ patients

Patients with chronic pain are an increasingly challenging population to care for, especially as physicians and local governments confront the opioid crisis.

On July 30, UB will host a program for local primary care physicians and providers on how to deal with patients with chronic pain that providers “inherit” from other practices.

“Primary Care and the Opioid Crisis in WNY: Inheriting the Pharmacotherapy of Patients with Chronic Pain” will take place from 8 a.m. to noon in 190 Kapoor Hall, South Campus.

The program addresses an issue that more primary care providers locally and nationally may find themselves dealing with, according to Nancy Nielsen, senior associate dean for health policy at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a member of the Erie County Department of Health’s Opioid Task Force.

Nielsen has experienced firsthand the challenges of working with “inherited” patients suffering with chronic pain.

“Recently, thousands of patients with chronic pain in Western New York became ‘medical refugees,’ unable to get ongoing care after a busy pain practice suddenly closed,” she says.

“Primary care physicians, emergency department physicians and other pain practices would not or could not care for them. We have to deal with chronic pain as part of medical practice, using pain specialists as consultants but not as a dumping ground. This public health crisis was a wake-up call for all of us,” Nielsen says.

Speakers will include Judith Feld, medical director of provider engagement and practice innovation at Independent Health; Doug Gourlay, educational consultant for pain and chemical dependency, Wasser Pain Management Centre, Toronto; and Paul Updike, medical director, chemical dependency, Sisters of Charity Hospital, Buffalo.

Feld, who will serve as the program's moderator, praised the collaborative efforts of the various organizations involved in the program. “The number of organizations involved shows how important this topic is, and it’s been a privilege to help organize this remarkable and timely collaboration of all our community stakeholders,” she says.

The program will address:

• The opioid pain prescription problem in Western New York.
• Strategies and practical approaches for handling the “inherited” patient.
• Methods of managing care in difficult situations, including patients on high-dose regimens, polypharmacy and urine drug testing refusal.
• Identifying and managing patients struggling with, or at high risk for, dependency and addiction.

Physicians who attend will learn about supportive resources in the community, including pain management specialists, addictionologists, physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists, and local pharmacists. They also will learn about concepts, such as desperation pharmacotherapy from the perspective of the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and about the pharmacology of withdrawal.

Among the program sponsors are the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Independent Health, the Erie County Health Department and Kaleida Health.

Those interested in attending should register by July 27. More information is available online.