IHC Compass Opioid Prescribing and Treatment Guidance Toolkit

This resource, developed by Iowa Healthcare Collaborative (IHC) Compass, was created to help clinicians:

• Limit new opioid prescriptions;
• Optimize non-opioid pain management strategies;
• Implement risk management and harm reduction strategies for patients on chronic opioid therapy (COT); and
• Diagnose and treat patients struggling with opioid use disorder (OUD).

Clinicians across the nation continue to face one of the most devastating public health crises in decades: the overuse and abuse of prescription and illicit opioids. Opioid-related adverse drug events (ORADEs), physical dependence, development of OUD, and opioid overdose have become an increasingly common part of medical practice. The medical community is obligated to recognize its role in creating this crisis, as the practice patterns of clinicians have been a significant contributor.  Fortunately, clinicians and health care systems also have the power to reverse the opioid crisis by transforming their practices.