Blog: HealthStream-NQF Partnership Makes Opioid Stewardship Tools More Widely Available-1160149462

HealthStream-NQF Partnership Makes Opioid Stewardship Tools More Widely Available

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 third 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.

HealthStream-NQF Partnership Puts Tools into More Hands

The new course accomplishes that effectively by allowing clinicians who do not have much experience with opioids to grow in knowledge, while those with strong practical skills add to their own awareness.

“Within each of those areas or fundamentals we came up with a set of best practices or implementation strategies, and separated those into basic, intermediate, and advanced levels,” explains Meredith Gerland, MPH, CIC, CPHQ, Senior Director of Quality Innovation at NQF. “The information flows freely between the categories, so administrators or clinicians at a major academic medical center with lots of resources can find what they need as easily as a smaller institution which may not be as far along in its development.”

The goal is for participants to bring their opioid stewardship program to the next level, eventually becoming national leaders. That’s why both the playbook and course are designed to be living, breathing entities that adapt and evolve, and also are focused on real-world, implementable solutions.

Other installments in this series include:

  • A Healthcare Education Solution Focused on the Opioid Crisis
  • Deliberative Process Yields Practical Guide
  • Levels of Coursework Ensure Wider Engagement across Providers
  • Interactive Platform Provides More Immersive Learning

Learn more about the NQF Opioid Stewardship Fundamentals online course in the HealthStream webinar, Addressing the Opioid Epidemic: Creating an Effective Opioid Stewardship Program.