El Paso VA deemed “most improved,” decreased opioid-prescribing rates
U.S. Secretary of Veteran Affairs Dr. David Shulkin announced that VA has begun publicly posting information on opioids dispensed from VA pharmacies, along with VA’s strategies to prescribe the pain medications appropriately and safely.
“This is something that has in a sense gotten out of control in the number of years,” El Paso VA Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Ezekiel Sanchez said. “We are making great efforts in reducing it.”
With the announcement, El Paso’s VA was one of a few cities recognized for its efforts in decreasing prescribing rates.
“”We are very excited to learn that El Paso is a leading facility nation wide in reducing rates for opioid prescriptions,” Sanchez said.
El Paso was deemed “most improved” after decreasing prescribing rates by more than 60 percent since 2012. The rate decreased by 66 percent over the past five years, which stands as the biggest improvement across the country.
“This was a collaborated effort across many services in our system,” Sanchez said.
In 2012, El Paso’s VA prescribing rate sate at 12 percent and by 2017 the rates dropped to 7 percent, which mean only 7 percent of the veterans at the VA are prescribed opioids.
The Interventional Pain Clinic is one of the many alternative services offered at the El Paso VA.
” In that clinic, we offer acupuncture, healing touch, yoga, physical rehabilitation and nerve simulators,” Sanchez said. “We offer a lot of the new state-of-the-art non-pharmalogical treatments for pain.”
“Many veterans enrolled in the VA health-care system suffer from high rates of chronic pain and the prescribing of opioids may be necessary medically,” Secretary Shulkin said. “And while VA offers other pain-management options to reduce the need for opioids, it is important that we are transparent on how we prescribe opioids, so veterans and the public can see what we are doing in our facilities and the progress we have made over time.”
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway said, “Declaring the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency was a call to action by the President. His administration is exploring all tools and authorities within their agencies to address this complex challenge costing lives. Veteran’s Affairs Administrator Dr. Shulkin is heeding that call; the VA is now the first hospital system in the country to post information on its opioid prescribing rates. This is an innovative way to raise awareness, increase transparency and mitigate the dangers of overprescribing.”
With this announcement, VA becomes the only health-care system in the country to post information on its opioid-prescribing rates. The disclosure is part of VA’s promise of transparency to veterans and the American people, and builds on VA’s strong record of transparency disclosures — including on wait times, accountability actions, employee settlements and the Secretary’s travel — under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump over the past year.
