If You Build It: The Progress and Pitfalls of Implementing Pain Management Teams

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States with approximately 9 million Veterans accessing VA healthcare each fiscal year. This course will focus on the implementation of a pain management team (PMT) at each VA facility as mandated by the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) legislation in 2016. These interdisciplinary pain specialty clinics are responsible for coordinating and overseeing treatment for Veterans experiencing acute or chronic pain. These pain teams integrate medical management, behavioral therapy, physical medicine, and rehabilitation therapies, in addition to integrative pain care approaches. The pain teams also offer access to treatment for opioid use disorder. These PMTs are well aligned with the recommendations of the Pain Management Best Practices Task Force Report 2019 by the Department of Health and Human Services. Based on information from an internal VA Pain Management Survey in 2019, we will share the successes for implementation of interdisciplinary pain clinics and identify barriers to team based care. We will discuss collaborative pain care with shared responsibility between primary care and pain specialty care clinicians for patients with high impact pain or at high risk. Options for ensuring improved pain care will be highlighted for those sites that are under resourced and face numerous barriers.

Course summary
Available credit: 
  • 1.00 AAFP
  • 1.00 AANP
  • 1.00 ACCME (All Other)
  • 1.00 ACCME (MD/DO Only)
  • 1.00 ACPE Pharmacy
  • 1.00 ANCC
  • 1.00 APA
Course opens: 
06/01/2021
Course expires: 
06/01/2022
Rating: 
0

Available Credit

  • 1.00 AAFP
  • 1.00 AANP
  • 1.00 ACCME (All Other)
  • 1.00 ACCME (MD/DO Only)
  • 1.00 ACPE Pharmacy
  • 1.00 ANCC
  • 1.00 APA
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Required Hardware/software

A computer with an internet connection
Internet Browser: Internet Explorer 7.x or higher, Firefox 4.x or higher, Safari 2.x or higher, or any other W3C standards compliant browser
Other additional software may be required such as PowerPoint or Adobe Acrobat Reader.