Assessment of Opioid Prescribing Practices Before and After Implementation of a Health System Intervention to Reduce Opioid Overprescribing

Key Points Question Can a series of focused interventions targeting different aspects of opioid overprescribing reduce opioid overprescribing within a health system? Findings This quality improvement study found postintervention reductions in opioid prescribing occurred at a statistically significantly faster pace than a preintervention downward trend. Overall reductions for key measures were 58% for morphine milligram equivalents per clinical encounter per month, 34% for morphine milligram equivalents per opioid prescription, and 38% for opioid prescriptions per encounter. Meaning Overprescribing can be reduced in different clinical departments using tools available to most health systems.