A Prescription for the Opioid Epidemic

In 2021, there were over 5,350 opioid related deaths in Canada, a 50% increase when compared to 2019 and an unfortunate new record for this country. During the COVID pandemic, we also saw an acceleration of the opioid crisis in many provinces including British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, which all saw record numbers of opioid-related deaths in 2021.

The origins of this crisis are complex, but we know that interwoven with the opioid epidemic is another health care crisis: Suboptimal pain management.

Patients suffer pain due to many reasons. Acute pain may follow a surgery, an accident or other trauma, an illness or other cause. Many of us will face some degree of pain that will require management with prescription medications at some point in our lives. In some cases, poorly treated pain will progress to chronic pain, which is pain that persists for over three months. Nearly eight million Canadians (one in five) experience chronic pain at some point in their lives.

The economic impact related to chronic pain is also significant. In 2019 the total health care costs and loss in productivity related to chronic pain was roughly $40 billion. According to Health Canada’s own analysis, approximately nine million Canadians may be dealing with chronic pain by 2030, which will put the cost to society between $52 billion and $55 billion.

These numbers are staggering and without a proactive, evidence-based approach, will likely only worsen.

As the province’s experts in pain management, Ontario’s Anesthesiologists have decided to take action to help address this issue. We have developed a free digital harm-prevention tool that aims to optimize pain control and reduce opioid misuse. SolvingPain was launched in June 2021 and it quickly and simply provides health care professionals with evidence-based pain management best practices for dozens of common surgical procedures. This includes clear, concise guidelines to optimize pain management in surgical patients using the latest and best evidence. The site also provides suggestions on best opioid prescribing practices to help limit excess opioids in the community, which can contribute to opioid misuse and addiction.

Prescriptions with excessive pill quantities and underusage of multimodal pain management techniques leads to suboptimal pain control. While the quantity of opioid pills prescribed has decreased in recent years, many pills are still going unused (as much as 80% for some surgeries). These extra pills contribute to the non-medical use of opioids (67% of Ontario high school students who use opioids obtained them at home). Additionally, poorly treated acute pain can also result in or exacerbate existing chronic pain, a condition with a complicated connection to opioids.

You can see SolvingPain and the Pathway in action at SolvingPain.ca.

By making this information easily accessible, we believe we can improve how pain is treated throughout the surgical experience, leading to improved patient experiences, lower health care costs and a reduced risk of opioid misuse.

While we’re proud of our work with SolvingPain, we know that more that needs to be done. We have a vision for a more comprehensive tool that expands beyond surgical pain and includes other forms of acute pain as well as chronic pain. This more robust platform will provide more customizable best practices; note strategies for populations at risk of opioid misuse or chronic pain; feature an opportunity for continuing professional development credits and more.

With the right support, we know that we can grow SolvingPain into a tool that will empower Canadian health care providers with the knowledge they need to optimize pain management, and through that control, reduce the potential for opioid misuse. If you would like to learn more about how you can help make a significant impact on Canada’s health care system, please contact us.

Respectfully,

Ontario’s Anesthesiologists Executive