The Opioid Stewardship Program (OSP) at St. Paul’s Hospital was established in January 2020 in response to the longstanding and increasingly fatal opioid crisis. The program endeavours to address ongoing gaps in care by improving opioid prescribing, utilization and monitoring in order to reduce the risk of adverse events and long-term opioid use and/or dependence while maintaining or improving pain control.
The team consists of a clinical pharmacy specialist and an addiction medicine physician who work on a variety of activities, including clinical consults, education and teaching, review of hospital policies and order sets, research, and quality improvement initiatives.
2023 marks the third year of the program and the team continues to make considerable strides, with an outstanding 2400 recommendations to improve opioid prescribing across 725 patient encounters. Beyond clinical work, the OSP has also been involved in a variety of quality improvement projects aimed at improving global opioid prescribing at St. Paul’s Hospital. The implementation of CST Cerner and transition to electronic prescribing in November 2019 has resulted in an assortment of order sets with the opportunity for opioid stewardship-related quality improvement, therefore the OSP has been and continues to be actively involved in improving the safety of these orders.
Overall, the success of the program would not be possible without the widespread adoption by St. Paul’s Hospital staff who have demonstrated incredible efforts to collaborate with and support the initiatives of our team.
To learn more about the work being done by the OSP, take a look at our third year report available at the following link: Opioid Stewardship Program | Providence Health Care
For more information or if you have any questions about the program, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of the members of our team:
Dr. Arielle Beauchesne, PharmD
abeauchesne@providencehealth.bc.ca
604-209-6909
Dr. Seonaid Nolan, MD
snolan@providencehealth.bc.ca
