Pain Management Part 5: Opioids for Pain Management
Presented by Cathleen Armato
Nonfinancial: Cathleen Armato has no competing nonfinancial interests or relationships with regard to the content presented in this course.
Opioid management is a learned skill requiring the clinician to understand best practices when initiating, titrating, and rotating opioids. Pain management experts also need to have a strong understanding of calculating breakthrough dosing and managing ongoing monitoring.
This course discusses the implementation, titration, and complex rotation of opioids. With methodical use of evidence-based best practices, patients can achieve a higher satisfaction level with their pain management and clinicians can feel confident with their skills.
This advanced course is applicable for clinicians in all healthcare settings who have a role in patient pain management.
Meet your instructor
Cathleen Armato
Cathleen Armato is an experienced executive with 22 years in the home care and hospice industry. She has served in various roles during that time, including VP of operations and chief compliance officer for a nationwide healthcare provider. In 2012, Cat became a consultant. Since that time, she has assisted multiple…
Chapters & learning objectives
1. Initiating Opioids
This chapter examines the initiation of opioids and how/when to move to a fixed-dose schedule. Safe implementation is discussed as well as reassessment time schedules.
2. Breakthrough Pain Management
Breakthrough pain medication is typically necessary to control activity-related or end-of-dose-related pain. In this chapter, we examine best practices for using breakthrough medication and how to reassess at appropriate intervals.
3. Rotation of Opioids
There are several reasons for rotating opioids, but this is a complicated process that should be carefully managed. CDC-recommended methods will be reviewed using morphine milligram equivalents (MME). We will also review calculating new breakthrough dosing and reassessment timing.
More courses in this series
Pain Management Part 1: Foundational Information
Cathleen Armato
Pain Management Part 2: Pain Types and Etiology
Cathleen Armato
Pain Management Part 3: The Thorough Pain Assessment
Cathleen Armato
Pain Management Part 4: Adjuvants and Nonpharmacologic Interventions
Cathleen Armato
Pain Management Part 5: Opioids for Pain Management
Cathleen Armato
Pain Management Part 6: Management of Opioid Side Effects
Cathleen Armato
Patient Notification of Hospice Non-Covered Items, Services, and Drugs
Cathleen Armato
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