Lean Six Sigma quality improvement approach to implement clinical practice guidelines for prescribing opiates for chronic pain in a primary care setting.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Implementing guidelines for chronic opioid management during a clinic merger posed significant challenges. Our aim was to increase the percentage of chronic pain evaluations and urine toxicology tests in patients on chronic opioid therapy from the baseline rate of less than 20% to 50% within 1 year at an academic, primary care clinic.

Methods

We applied the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC) approach of Lean Six Sigma for this quality improvement (QI) project. The QI tools included the creation of stakeholder mapping, root cause analysis, process flow mapping and a driver diagram. Lack of patient and provider education emerged as a significant barrier. The outcome measures were percentage of chronic pain evaluations and urine drug toxicology with a

SUBMITTER: Bakhai S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11409372 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature