OUD is a chronic disease.
Often, pharmacists feel that since they can’t ‘cure’ a patient with OUD, they shouldn’t even try. We want to challenge you to think differently:
If a patient with diabetes comes into your pharmacy with uncontrolled diabetes, you wouldn’t hesitate to offer lifestyle recommendations and/or encourage the patient to start medication. Neither of these interventions will cure your patient of diabetes, but they will improve their quality of life.
Likewise, when a patient has opioid use disorder, you can provide one of many interventions (Partial filling, Medication Takeback, Explaining OUD, Naloxone, Referral to Treatment) that will help manage this patient’s chronic disease. Data has shown that treating OUD significantly lowers mortality, even though it doesn’t “cure” the disease.
#opioidusedisorder #ndsu #oneprogram
