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Chris O'Brien Lifehouse has been honoured with a prestigious award for an innovative program aimed at improving patients' medication management.
The Sydney cancer care provider won the 'Clinical Excellence: Quality of Care and Patient Outcomes' category at the Australian Private Hospitals Association's 2024 APHA Awards for Excellence.
Pharmacist Kenny Lee spoke about the hospital's opioid stewardship program at the APHA 41st National Congress on the Gold Coast, where the awards ceremony was held.
"Patients are being discharged earlier than ever before, often with prescriptions they don't need or don't know anything about," he said.
"They're being over-prescribed. And for cancer patients, there's a higher risk of dependency on opioids.
"At the same time, there are some patients who leave hospital and they take nothing – no painkillers at all."
Introduced at Chris O'Brien Lifehouse in 2020 in response to the potential risks of opioids, particularly after surgery, the program aimed to reduce unnecessary or inappropriate prescribing.
It incorporates a multidisciplinary team made up of the director of the acute pain service, acute pain nurse specialist, and opioid stewardship pharmacist.
The approach focused on patient-centred prescribing, involving patients in decision-making and optimising communication between surgical and pain teams.
The team also integrated dispensary data with surgical cases to better understand opioid use in the hospital.
"Our teams are educated on pain management and appropriate opioid use," Mr Lee said.
"Plus, they're trained to see the signs of opioid dependency."
In only a few years of operation the program has led to a sustained reduction in both the size and formulation of opioids supplied to patients at discharge, despite the number of surgeries almost doubling.
It has also resulted in cultural and organisational change in the approach to opioid prescribing.
"There's been a 21 percent reduction in opioid use for surgical discharge patients," Mr Lee said.
"And our patients are part of the decision-making process."
APHA CEO Michael Roff said the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse program stood out among a strong field of finalists.
"There has been a lot of concern in the community and in medical practice about opioids being inappropriately prescribed and it presents a particularly difficult issue for a cancer hospital, where pain management is an essential part of treatment," he said.
"However, this program not only gives patients a voice about their medications, but also continues to upskill clinicians and provide information to them about their prescribing to improve what they are offering their patients.
"It's a great example of multidisciplinary team working with a focus on continuing quality improvement with their patients as the focus – and it's seen great results for all involved."
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