Spotlight: Duke and AACIPM are Aligned in Identifying Clinical Examples of Integrated Pain Management (IPM)

Roundtable at Duke – February 2020

AACIPM unites many stakeholders who are leading important work to advance whole person oriented, integrative and integrated pain management.  This includes Duke University where many of their leaders are focused on changing the paradigm in how pain management is being provided.

“Poorly managed pain, a key contributor to opioid misuse and use disorders, continues to be a significant public health problem in the time of Covid-19. Multidisciplinary integrated pain management programs can significantly reduce the burden of pain, but are not well-resourced or implemented.”

Read the full article in NEJM Catalyst: Managing Multiple Irons in the Fire: Continuing to Address the Opioid Crisis and Improve Pain Management during a Public Health Emergency – which outlines six major challenges that health care organizations, payers, policymakers and providers must overcome to operationalize integrated pain management programs and ensure continued progress in combating the opioid crisis, despite an ongoing public health crisis.

“The Whole Health System model is one example of what is possible for IPM programs. However, health care systems and payers looking to develop and implement IPM programs need exemplars of successful models across a variety of patient populations, reimbursement models, geographic regions, and delivery settings. To this end, we are working with initiatives such as the Alliance to Advance Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management (AACIPM) to identify IPM programs across the US and develop a knowledge base of best practices for program implementation. This resource will supply practical guidance for those organizations needing to develop, implement or sustain IPM programs.”

As background to the article published in NEJM Catalyst by a team at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and Duke Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, which includes Dr. Christine Goertz, several AACIPM Advisors participated in a Roundtable meeting at Duke in Durham, NC, in February 2020 (pictured above).  See reflections from that initial meeting by Adam Seidner, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, The Hartford.