Moderator: Nilesh Patel, MD and Katherine D. Travnicek, MD
Despite the added regulatory and payer scrutiny and in spite of heightened vigilance as well as decreased prescriptions of opioids, the number of overdoses and deaths continue to increase.
- What are the added regulatory burdens and how do these impact spinal clinical care?
- Can pre-rehabilitation, changes in pre and perioperative care, as well as post-operative outpatient protocols improve the surgical outcomes while simultaneously decrease the opiate burden in our society?
- When you have to wean the opiates, how do you achieve this?
A series of short, moderated lectures by content experts provides a backdrop for a discussion on desirable outcomes in care models.
Upon completion of this session, participants should gain strategies to:
- Comprehend the full scale of the opiate problems;
- Determine the role of alternatives before, during and after surgery;
- Know how to taper before and after surgery;
- Recognize the determinants of the spine surgery outcomes and how to address mitigate poor surgical outcomes;
- Discuss the latest scientific data and clinical pearls that can be immediately implemented into clinical practice (spine surgeons and interventional pain experts).
Agenda
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' 5-Point Strategy to Combat the Opioid Crisis
Douglas O'Brien, U.S. DHHS Regional Director
The Opioid Landscape and its Relevance to the Spine Population
Katherine D. Travnicek, MD
Preoperative and Perioperative Strategies to Optimize Surgical Outcomes and Decrease Opiate Burden
Ronald Wasserman, MD
Pain Despite Spine Surgeries: Tapering, Weaning and Other Options
Jeremy Scarlett, MD
Clinical Pearls from a Spine Surgeon to Decrease "Failures" and Hence Reliance on Opiates
John Sherman, MD
Current Data on Spinal Neuromodulation on Decreasing Opiate Burden, Spine Surgeons Outcomes and Tips
Alexander S. Bailey, MD
Research on Emerging Solutions that Decrease Opiates
Lawrence Poree, MD and Steven Falkowski, MD