2019 HSR&D/QUERI National Conference

3009 — Pain and Opioids: State of the Science and Partner Priorities

Lead/Presenter: William Becker,  COIN - West Haven
All Authors: Dr. Friedhelm Sandbrink, Director of VHA’s National Pain Management Program Office. Dr. Karen Drexler, National Mental Health Program Director, Substance Use Disorders. Dr. Virginia Torrise, Deputy Chief Consultant - PBM Professional Practice and Clinical Informatics Dr. Alicia Heapy, Associate Director, PRIME Center of Innovation, VA Connecticut Dr. Erin Krebs, Core Investigator, CCDOR, Chief, Gen Int Med, Minneapolis VA Dr. Will Becker, Core Investigator, PRIME, VA Connecticut Dr. Keith Humphreys, HSR&D Senior Research Career Scientist, Ci2i, VA Palo Alto

Workshop Objectives:
With the ongoing opioid crisis and significant burden of pain affecting the health and wellbeing of millions of Veterans, research focused on improving care for Veterans with chronic pain, opioid use disorder and associated chronic conditions remains a critical need. The objective of this workshop is to provide an interactive forum to present recommendations from the Opioid State-of-the-Art (SOTA) conference occurring in mid-September; discuss organization and aims of the new Pain/Opioid consortium for research (CORE); and allow partners to reflect on how their offices’ priorities shaped and will continue to guide research. Didactic segments will be interspersed with Q&A to maximize participants’ engagement and interaction.

Activities:
We will divide the 90-minute session into three 30-minute sections, each divided evenly into 15 minute didactic and Q&A portions. The three sections are as follows: 1) Present recommendations from the Opioid SOTA, and briefly review recommendations from the prior nonpharmacological pain management SOTA, highlighting how these recommendations will inform the future work of the Pain/Opioid CORE; 2) Present the organization and aims of the Pain/Opioid CORE; 3) Partners’ reflections on pain and opioid research priorities. While the workshop will be open to all interested participants, we will outreach to Conference attendees who participated in the SOTA and are involved in the CORE to highly encourage them to attend the workshop. This will facilitate more interaction and dialogue, and promote diversity of perspectives and methodological expertise.

Target Audience:
Researchers at all career levels, COIN and non-COIN affiliated, and policymakers interested in the topic areas.

Assumed Audience Familiarity with Topic:
We anticipate that participants will self-select as having at least general familiarity with the topics but welcome those who are new to the field hoping to learn more.