2025 American Academy of Neurology Abstract Website

Objective:

We evaluated the effectiveness of a departmental grand rounds about opioid indications, safety, and prescribing guidelines on the opioid prescribing behavior of a large academic neurology department.

Background:

The opioid epidemic has highlighted the need for physicians to avoid contributing to opioid use disorder while continuing to offer optimal care for patients with painful conditions. Use of an opioid prescription monitoring tool by a health-system-wide opioid stewardship committee may help identify prescribing patterns and opportunities for increased use of effective non-opioid alternative treatments at the department and individual prescriber levels.

Design/Methods:

Opioid prescriptions within an academic neurology department were monitored for a five-month period before a one-hour educational grand rounds about opioids, and again for five months after the grand rounds. The top six opioid-prescribing physicians within the department attended the grand rounds and had a 30-minute session with a board-certified pain medicine expert and neurologist to highlight best clinical practices as well as recent national and state prescribing and documentation guidelines for opioid prescriptions

Results:

There was a 24% pre-post decrease in total opioid prescriptions by the department, and a 17% pre-post decrease in opioid prescriptions written by the top six prescribers within the department during the 5-month period monitored after the educational session, compared to the 5-month period prior to the educational session.

Conclusions:

A one-hour discussion about opioids led to a substantial and sustained decrease in opioid prescribing within a large academic neurology department. Utilization of enterprise-wide outpatient opioid prescription monitoring systems may help identify further educational opportunities to continue addressing the opioid epidemic without compromising patient care.