Governor Hassan Announces Provider Training Program to Address the Opioid Epidemic

Press Release

Continuing her efforts to combat the heroin and opioid epidemic, Governor Maggie Hassan, along with officials at Catholic Medical Center (CMC) in partnership with the Boston University School of Medicine and the New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, announced today a series of regional opioid education conferences intended to help stem the tide of addiction by improving provider training. The first conference will be held on November 13, 2015, in Bedford.

"Addressing the heroin and opioid crisis requires partnerships at every level to strengthen education, prevention and treatment," Governor Hassan said. "Improving training for providers can help prevent the overprescribing of opioids that can lead to addiction and heroin use. Having a strong, forward-looking partner in Catholic Medical Center was pivotal in bringing together the people necessary to make this program happen in New Hampshire. I applaud the work of these partners and look forward to every hospital and medical center sharing a uniform vision for the use of opioids and the management of chronic pain."

The educational conferences were included as part of Jack Wozmak's -- the Governor's Senior Director of Substance Misuse and Behavioral Health -- initial recommendations announced last month for addressing the heroin crisis following extensive outreach to public health and safety experts.

"This will be the first of many regional training programs that will be made available to every prescriber in the state over the next year," Wozmak said.

"Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has been offering safe opioid prescribing education to Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Nurses and Pharmacists and to date, we have trained over 25,000 clinicians in safe opioid prescribing via our on-line programming and 32 statewide live trainings in 16 states and 75 community-based meetings," said Ilana Hardesty from Boston University. "We are very pleased that the Governor's Office and Catholic Medical Center have partnered with us and New England HIDTA to make this regional program available in New Hampshire," Hardesty said.

The case-based program covers the following content: determining appropriateness of opioid analgesics; assessing opioid misuse risk; counseling patients on opioid safety, risks and benefits; monitoring patients for benefit and harm; deciding on continuing, modifying or discontinuing opioid analgesics; and discontinuing opioids when there is too little benefit or too much risk. In addition to detailed clinical content, participants in live activities engage in an intensive question-and-answer session with video trigger tapes illustrating complex patient-provider communications.

Dr. William Goodman, MD, Chief Medical Officer and V.P of Medical Affairs at CMC said that "while the medical center had already been working on improving the use of opioids, the timing of Mr. Wozmak's partnership, linking to the BU program was critical to making this education a reality within a very short period of time."

The training program, known as SCOPE of Pain, received a 2014 Outstanding Prevention Effort award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

"Based on a two-month follow up evaluation of approximately 500 participants, SCOPE of Pain improved participants knowledge, attitudes, confidence and self-reported clinical practice in safe opioid prescribing," Hardesty said.

The SCOPE of Pain program is funded by an independent educational grant awarded by the manufacturers of extended-release and long-acting opioid analgesics, collectively known as the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) Program Companies or RPC.

The November 13, 2015, meeting is funded in part by an independent educational grant from the New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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