Pharmacists play range of roles in opioid stewardship: study

Pharmacists are in a strategic position to help with opioid stewardship, but the roles they take on vary between practices. A scoping review was conducted to determine what types of opioid stewardship activities pharmacists practice, and their impact on outcomes. Results were published in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. “Many pharmacists have strong professional relationships with their patients and serve as the first line of access when questions or issues arise. This relationship is essential when it comes to difficult topics like opioid use disorder. They can have even greater impact if their role is standardized and better recognized or supported,” said study coauthor Feng Cheng, PharmD in an email interview with Pharmacy Practice. He is an associate professor of pharmacy at the University of Waterloo. Through patient interaction, pharmacists can potentially identify people at risk of overdose. Pharmacies are also key points of naloxone distribution and many participate in the fentanyl patch for patch program, giving them access to patients. Read George Budd: Pioneering pharmacist first to complete fellowship in addiction medicine Opioid stewardship was described as “coordinated interventions designed to improve, monitor, and evaluate the use of opioids in order to support and protect human health”. But there is no standardization and practice approaches vary across jurisdictions which can make opioid stewardship in pharmacy less effective overall, the study said. The review included 77 studies, with most, 82%, conducted in North America. They were categorized into two areas: those that addressed the pharmacists’ scope of practice, and the specific interventions implemented. In 92% (71) of the studies, opioid stewardship interventions improved at least one outcome measure, with statistically significant improvements reported in 51% (39) of studies. Benefits were seen when pharmacists took active roles in preventative measures such as opioid tapering, and where they actively worked with health care teams and patients to identify and achieve pain management goals. Areas where pharmacists had significant impacts were in patient or health care professional education, medication therapy adjustments, community stakeholder education, policy and guideline setting, and risk assessment. Pharmacists played a variety of roles in education-related activities with patients, other health care professionals, and the public. Read: Spray, don't delay! Conversations around naloxone in practice Pharmacists often provided medication therapy adjustments or offered naloxone through their dispensing or prescribing authority which had positive impact on patient outcomes. “This finding is consistent with the expanding role of pharmacists over the past decade,” the study said. In several studies, interventions occurring in the context of an interdisciplinary collaborative, approaches to patient care also showed positive outcomes. The study can be found in the journal Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy.

Pharmacists play range of roles in opioid stewardship: study

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