Reducing Concurrent Opioid-Benzodiazepine Prescriptions Through Provider Messages

What was the challenge?

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) Clinical Practice Guideline for Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain strongly recommends against the concurrent use of opioids and benzodiazepines. The Defense Health Agency (DHA) in the DoD sought to increase adherence to prescribing guidelines by reducing concurrent prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines.

What was the program change?

OES and DHA designed targeted messages to communicate with providers about the guidelines and to encourage care coordination.

How did the evaluation work?

Patients newly identified as having concurrent opioid-benzodiazepine prescriptions were randomly assigned to one of two provider messaging conditions: no email with as usual access to an existing opioid registry (control), or a group email to all associated providers with encouragement to coordinate across providers.

What was the impact?

Results are forthcoming.

You can verify the upload date of our analysis plan here.