WSHA, in collaboration with the Washington State Medical Association (WSMA), Washington Department of Health, and the Health Care Authority (HCA) released the most recent round of the Washington State Opioid Prescribing Reports: Acute Prescribing, via ShareFile, to Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) and quality leaders this week. The Opioid Prescribing Reports, based on Washington State Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) data, offer system-level snapshots of opioid prescribing behaviors by specialty group, including peer benchmarks, for the state. The reports focus on metrics aligned with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bree Collaborative guidelines.
In response to hospital and external stakeholder feedback, this round of reports includes format and text changes to make the reports easier to interpret, improve data transparency, and build consistency between the hospital/health system reports sent by WSHA and the individual-level prescribing reports provided by WSMA. For example, the term “non-compliance” has been replaced by “above guidelines,” which more clearly references the HCA’s prescribing policy. Additionally, data on the first page was shifted toward the top as this information reflects the central purpose of the report. The report also now includes a line graph and summary tabular data on the first page to allow hospitals/health systems to view changes over time and a shadow box with clear data definitions.
WSHA remains committed to partnering with you to address opioid prescribing in Washington State. Please reach out if you have questions about the reports or would like to discuss your data or opioid stewardship activities/resources with the WSHA team. Additionally, if your hospital did not receive your report and/or is not already signed up to receive the WA Opioid Prescribing Reports, we would be happy to work with you. Please contact Brooke Evans at brookee@wsha.org for more information.
