The Personalized Pain Program: A New Transitional Perioperative Pain Care Delivery Model to Improve Surgical Recovery and Address the Opioid Crisis

CRISISOpioids are addictive and prolonged opioid use has negative consequences for individual patients and public health more broadly.1 In 2020, more than 80,000 deaths were attributed to an opioid-related overdose.Reducing the reliance on opioids for pain management remains a public health challenge.According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2020, over 142 million opioid prescriptions were dispensed in the United States (US).Surgery is a leading cause of opioid prescribing: over 100 million surgical procedures are performed annually in the US and 80% of surgeries result in a postoperative opioid prescription.While opioids effectively treat acute pain, poor communication across transitions from the pre-to-postoperative period and wide variability in opioid prescribing practices postoperatively increases the risk of prolonged and escalated opioid use and reduces quality of care. 2 Chronic pain and preexisting opioid use are robust predictors of prolonged opioid use after surgery, regardless of the type of procedure.3,4 A wellcoordinated and effectively integrated healthcare system can shepherd these patients on presurgical opioids for preexisting pain to the appropriate multidisciplinary specialists who can manage perioperative pain and optimize postoperative recovery.