Access the new Opioid Safety Toolkit — A free resource for you and your patients
Clinical and allied health professionals have a critical role to play in reducing our current high rates of prescription opioid-related harm. These harms, including dependence [1,2], overdose [3], hospitalisation and death [4], are driven by one of the world’s highest per-capita rates of opioid use [5].
The new Opioid Safety Toolkit is an evidence-based, Commonwealth-funded, online interactive resource designed to improve health literacy for people taking prescription opioids for chronic pain.
Created through the collaborative efforts of Monash Addiction Research Centre (Monash University), the Burnet Institute, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Painaustralia, the Opioid Safety Toolkit has been co-designed with consumers and medical experts.
Improve patient safety and health literacy with the Opioid Safety Toolkit
The Opioid Safety Toolkit promotes the safe use of use prescription opioids by creating a personalised opioid safety plan [6] that helps consumers to:
identify unique risks and guide risk prevention
recognise symptoms
understand an emergency response to severe opioid-related adverse effects, also known as toxicity or overdose.
The toolkit also emphasises the critical importance of accessing naloxone, a free, life-saving medicine that temporarily reverses the effects of opioids and can be administered while waiting for emergency services to arrive.
Because severe adverse effects can happen even when the correctly prescribed opioid dose is taken, it is recommended that patients have naloxone on hand to protect themselves and their loved ones, even though most patients may never need to use it.
You can offer the Opioid Safety Toolkit to your patients who are prescribed opioids for pain today.
Download or order the free consumer resources (electronic or hardcopy) from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia website: Opioid Safety Toolkit - Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.
About Routine Opioid Outcome Monitoring (ROOM) tools
By promoting the toolkit and using its Routine Opioid Outcome Monitoring (ROOM) Tool, doctors, pharmacists and other health professionals can enhance clinical care by:
assisting patients to monitor their opioid-related clinical and quality of life outcomes (including identifying unmanaged pain, risks or adverse effects)
engaging in patient-centred discussions [7]
improving patient health literacy.
Learn more about the ROOM Tool and find related resources for health professionals: Routine Opioid Outcome Monitoring (ROOM) tools - Monash Addiction Research Centre (MARC).
More support for health professionals
Brisbane South PHN commissions services to provide alcohol and other drugs treatment services in response to the needs of our region. View these commissioned services on our website: Alcohol and other drugs | Brisbane South PHN
For support with assessment, management and referral pathways, view the following Brisbane South HealthPathways:
References