Making Sense of the Noise: The e‐Chronic Pain Recommendation Map Initiative as a Pathway to Clarity, Trust, and Equity in Chronic Pain Management

Summary What we already know: Health guidelines for managing chronic pain are numerous but vary widely in quality and often provide conflicting recommendations. This inconsistency leads to confusion among users, including health care providers, patients and their caregivers, policymakers and researchers, potentially causing unwarranted variation in care, suboptimal treatment and the widening of health inequities. What this adds to what was known? The electronic Chronic Pain Recommendation Map (RecMap) will be the first open‐access digital platform to systematically identify, appraise, visually display and compare chronic pain guidelines and their recommendations across three high‐priority areas: opioids, cannabis for medical purposes and spine‐related interventional procedures. Its innovative design features co‐development with people with lived experience, explicit integration of an equity lens throughout, and tailored interfaces for health care providers, patients and their caregivers, policymakers and researchers. What is the implication and what should change now? The Chronic Pain RecMap will support health care providers and patients in making evidence‐informed, shared decisions at the point of care. It will enable policymakers to craft equitable, evidence‐based health policies and help researchers identify key evidence gaps. Ultimately, it aims to improve the quality, consistency and equity of pain care by improving access to trustworthy guidance and reducing unwarranted variation in care across health systems.