A Collaboration Between Government and the Continuing Education Community Tackles the Opioid Crisis: Lessons Learned and Future Opportunities

Abstract

In 2016, 116 people died each day from opioid-related drug overdoses and in 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. During the preceding years, the continuing education (CE) accreditors in the health professions identified a need for a strategic, coordinated effort that would involve an interprofessional coalition of multiple stakeholders to respond to this emerging public health challenge. The Conjoint Committee on Continuing Education, a national coalition of organizations in the professions of medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and physician assistants, stepped up to assume a leadership position. To address the scope of safety issues involved in opioids, the US Food and Drug Administration required that extended-release and long-acting opioid analgesic product manufacturers make training available to prescribers of their products and recommended that the training should be conducted by accredited, independent CE providers. CE accreditors in the health professions initiated an unprecedented collaboration that leveraged the accredited CE community to deliver prescriber education as part of the Food and Drug Administration Opioid Analgesics Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy. This article describes the history of this interprofessional collaboration including lessons learned and opportunities for future collaboration to address public health issues.