Provider education decreases opioid prescribing after pediatric umbilical hernia repair
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In brief
In brief
A multi-center educational intervention targeting 79 pediatric surgeons successfully reduced opioid prescribing after umbilical hernia repair from 75.8% to 44.6% of patients. The intervention emphasized non-opioid alternatives and provided evidence-based prescribing guidelines, demonstrating that targeted provider education can significantly improve opioid stewardship in pediatric surgical practice.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Purpose
To improve opioid stewardship for umbilical hernia repair in children.
Methods
An educational intervention was conducted at 9 centers with 79 surgeons. The intervention highlighted the importance of opioid stewardship, demonstrated practice variation, provided prescribing guidelines, encouraged non-opioid analgesics, and encouraged limiting doses/strength if opioids were prescribed. Three to six months of pre-intervention and 3 months of post-intervention prescribing practices for umbilical hernia repair were compared.
Results
A total of 343 patients were identified in the pre-intervention cohort and 346 in the post-intervention cohort. The percent of patients receiving opioids at discharge decreased from 75.8% pre-intervention to 44.6% (p