Blog: Opioid Stewardship Training Based on the Input of Many Expert Stakeholders-1157270507

Opioid Stewardship Training Based on the Input of Many Expert Stakeholders

May 14, 2021
May 14, 2021

Education, both for the public and for clinicians, continues to play a central role in combatting the national opioid crisis. The spiraling nature of the epidemic also means that experts from across the healthcare continuum must join forces to reach as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. That sense of urgency is why HealthStream and the National Quality Forum (NQF) have partnered to create the NQF Opioid Stewardship Fundamentals online training course, an educational series that follows the seven fundamental actions of the National Quality Partners (NQP) Playbook: Opioid Stewardship.

This Blog post is the second of five that excerpts the HealthStream article, HealthStream, National Quality Forum Partner to Combat the Opioid Crisis, which describes our partnership with NQF to provide learning courseware for healthcare professionals that is aimed squarely at addressing the opioid crisis.

Deliberative Process Yields Practical Guide

Once NQF decided to focus its attention on the opioid crisis, its leadership team settled in for many months of work. They tapped outside experts for data and strategy ideas and began to look at how healthcare providers and entities could tackle the complex issue of opioid addiction and SUD. Realizing that opioid stewardship would be complex enough on its own, they focused on that area and began to create a framework for what is now the NQP Playbook: Opioid Stewardship.

“We decided to focus on that first, making sure that opioids are being prescribed at the right time for the right reasons, and if there are alternatives, to ensure that those are being pursued,’” explains Kathleen Giblin, RN, Senior Vice President of Quality Innovation at the NQF. “Being that specific got us into action and began to get the basics of the playbook developed.”

“NQF’s role as a neutral convener was essential to success,” adds Meredith Gerland, MPH, CIC, CPHQ, Senior Director of Quality Innovation at NQF, pointing out that the action team alone had 40 member organizations on it, bringing to the table everyone from clinical and patient partners to health plans, industry representatives, and federal agencies.

“We were able to gather all these diverse perspectives, to talk about opioid stewardship, to talk about the barriers they’re each facing, what’s preventing progress in this field, and how can we collectively come together to drive change,” Gerland says. “All of those conversations over seven or eight months built an actionable and practical guide for healthcare organizations through the playbook, which in turn is what the HealthStream course is built on.”

Other installments in this series include:

  • A Healthcare Education Solution Focused on the Opioid Crisis
  • HealthStream-NQF Partnership Puts Tools into More Hands
  • Levels of Coursework Ensure Wider Engagement across Providers
  • Interactive Platform Provides More Immersive Learning