What is AACIPM?
The Alliance to Advance Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management (AACIPM) is the first-of-its-kind multi-stakeholder collaborative, comprised of people living with pain, public and private insurers, government agencies, patient and caregiver advocates, researchers, purchasers of healthcare, policy experts, and the spectrum of healthcare providers involved in the delivery of comprehensive integrative pain management.
AACIPM is an initiative, not an organization, and is built by the strength of engagement with its participating stakeholders. We are grateful to the Lovell Foundation for its grant to fund this important work and to our Advisory Committee members and others leaders involved in AACIPM’s activities.
Connecting the Dots
AACIPM connects the dots to advance equitable, whole person, multi-modal pain care.
What is CIPM?
Consensus Definition: Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management (CIPM)
The following definition was developed in October 2017 when 75 leaders from more than 50 organizations representing public and private insurers, people with pain, healthcare providers, purchasers of healthcare, government agencies, federal medicine, policy experts and patient/caregiver advocates convened to attend the Integrative Pain Care Policy Congress.
We invite you to read the history behind AACIPM to better understand how this definition came to be – and to highlight the future changes that will undoubtedly occur as this multi-stakeholder collaborative continues to tackle changing the paradigm in pain care today.
Comprehensive, integrative pain management includes biomedical, psychosocial, complementary health, and spiritual care. It is person-centered and focuses on maximizing function and wellness. Care plans are developed through a shared decision-making model that reflects the available evidence regarding optimal clinical practice and the person’s goals and values.
We also invite you to read an opinion piece authored by two of AACIPM’s key stakeholders, an Advisory Committee member and partner in our purchaser education program, that provides more details about why CIPM is so important and what AACIPM is doing.
If your organization would like to support this consensus definition of comprehensive integrative pain management, contact Amy Goldstein.
The following organizations express support of the above definition of Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management:
Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine
Academic Collaborative for Integrative Health
Academic Consortium of Integrative Medicine and Health
Alliance for Balanced Pain Management
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
American Academy of Orofacial Pain
American Academy of Pain Medicine
American Association of Nurse Practitioners
American Association of Nurse Anesthetists
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
American College of Physicians
American Holistic Nurses Association
American Massage Therapy Association
American Occupational Therapy Association
American Osteopathic Association
American Pharmacists Association
American Physical Therapy Association
American Society for Pain Management Nursing
Foundation for Chiropractic Progress
Integrative Medicine for the Underserved
Integrative Health Policy Consortium
International Association of Yoga Therapists
Midwest Business Group on Health
National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations
National Association of Social Workers
National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
National Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Association
National Patient Advocate Foundation
The New York State Pain Society
Partnership for Drug-Free Kids
Pediatric Pain & Palliative Care Program, UCLA
If your organization would like to support this consensus definition of comprehensive integrative pain management, contact Amy Goldstein.
History
Comprehensive, interdisciplinary, team-based, multimodal, integrative pain management (CIPM) is widely accepted as the standard of care for people living with pain. However, this is simply not happening widely. CIPM must be understood by the public and health care professionals, covered by public and private insurers, and accessible to people with pain. Promoting CIPM is vital to solving our nation’s overlapping public health crises of chronic pain, opioid misuse and overdose, and mental health disorders.
In the past decade, the sheer numbers of pain management-related policies that were proposed and/or enacted increased by hundreds compared to the prior years. This influx of pain management guidelines and regulations – state and federal, public and private – in response to our nation’s opioid misuse and overdose epidemic, has impacted the health care that is available to those in need of acute and chronic pain management. These policies have good intentions but have caused confusion with conflicting stakeholder recommendations. One example of this can be seen by reading the Center for Disease Control’s April 2019 commentary published in the New England Journal of Medicine about its own 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, stating some resulting policies and practices are inconsistent with its recommendation.
While these efforts have resulted in lower opioid prescribing rates, they do not address the underlying problem of untreated pain. In the absence of meaningful access to a coordinated and comprehensive approach to non-opioid therapies as part of the full toolbox of pain treatment options, there has been rising concern that these efforts are failing to address barriers to comprehensive, interdisciplinary, multimodal, integrative pain management and resulting in unintended adverse consequences (e.g., overdose or suicide) for people living with pain. There clearly is a widespread consensus that we need to provide a comprehensive, person-centered approach to care that includes the options right for each person’s situation, if we are to succeed in treating pain in ways that do not exacerbate the opioid crisis.
This rising concern has been percolating for many years and led to creation of a multi-stakeholder collaborative effort, now called the Alliance to Advance Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management (previously called the Integrative Pain Care Policy Congress), to take action around shared priorities in advancing quality pain management. In October 2017, 75 leaders from more than 50 organizations representing public and private insurers, people with pain, healthcare providers, purchasers of healthcare, government agencies, federal medicine, policy experts and patient/caregiver advocates convened to attend the Integrative Pain Care Policy Congress. United because of a shared desire to advance a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, integrated and integrative approach to pain care, the primary goal of the first meeting was to develop a consensus definition for the approach to pain care being discussed. Through pre-meeting surveys and live discussion, a definition for comprehensive integrative pain management was achieved.
The definition from 2017 was as follows: Comprehensive integrative pain management includes biomedical, psychosocial, complementary health, and spiritual care. It is person-centered and focuses on maximizing function and wellness. Care plans are developed through a shared decision-making model that reflects the available evidence regarding optimal clinical practice and the person’s goals and values.
Key priorities related to pain care access, public awareness, research, clinical outcomes, and education were identified during the meeting, and afterwards, stakeholders voted to create virtual workgroups to address some of these priorities. Developing white papers was a goal for two of the past workgroups titled, Improving Access to Quality Pain Care and Promoting Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management. With momentum growing, a second meeting held in Boston in November 2018 brought together 95 leaders from 75 organizations focused on identifying shared priorities for action.
The Alliance to Advance Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management (AACIPM), an initiative funded by a grant from the Lovell Foundation plus matching contributions, launched in 2019, and includes an Advisory Committee of leaders representing key stakeholders involved. AACIPM is leading efforts to complete white papers, facilitate education with and for payors and purchasers of healthcare, construct strategic policy recommendations, and create a list of CIPM practice examples across settings and patient populations. AACIPM will also host a Pain Policy Congress.
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