Opioid Crisis
The healthcare administrative problem of interest is the ineffective management of opioid prescriptions in ambulatory care settings. This issue is of interest to me because the management of opioids on an outpatient basis is poor and is a significant cause of opioid addiction, which increases healthcare costs while reducing the quality of health outcomes to the extent that it has become a public health issue. (Krebbs et al., 2014) The ambulatory care centers I wish to examine include primary care clinics, urgent care centers, and outpatient surgery centers. These centers are, many times, the first point of contact between a patient and a care provider when they seek pain management services (Merlin et al., 2020). I am interested in understanding the extent of the strategies applied to patients in pain management and how they lead to the over-prescription of opioids.
My proposal is as follows: I aim to explore evidence-based strategies that enhance opioid prescription management in ambulatory care settings. My thesis statement is as follows: “Implementing comprehensive opioid stewardship programs in ambulatory care settings, supported by current professional guidelines and government regulations, can significantly reduce opioid misuse and improve patient outcomes.” My research will, therefore, analyze the best practices that can be employed to address opioid addiction by patients receiving services from these centers. Some of the options I will explore include but are not limited to prescription monitoring programs, patient education initiatives, and alternative pain management therapies
Some challenges I may face in my research are accessing up-to-date comprehensive data specific to ambulatory services, the variability in the implementation of opioid management programs in different care centers, which may make it difficult to generalize findings, and resistance from care providers who may be accustomed to the traditional practices. I will collaborate with institutions and other stakeholders to address these problems.