Impact of virtual case conferences between primary care clinicians and an interdisciplinary chronic pain clinic.
Jorgenson Derek J DJ, Halpape Katelyn K, Marwah Radhika R, Siton Michael M
To assess the impact of virtual case conferences on referring primary care clinician knowledge, prescribing, and patient care practices. Paper-based postal survey. The USask Chronic Pain Clinic (UCPC) in Saskatoon, Sask. All referring health professionals who participated in a USask Chronic Pain Clinic case conference between July 2023 and December 2024 were included. Participants included family physicians (87.3%, n=48 of 55) and nurse practitioners (12.7%, n=7 of 55). The questionnaire collected data regarding participant demographic characteristics and various aspects of participants' chronic pain management knowledge, prescribing, and chronic pain care practices. A total of 168 questionnaires were mailed and the response rate was 32.7% (n=55 of 168). Most participants found case conferences to be a useful resource to their practices (94.5%) and reported that the service helped them with the management of their patients (92.7%). Many respondents reported improved knowledge about safe opioid prescribing (70.9%) and the process for opioid tapering (49.1%). Most agreed the knowledge they acquired from the case conference had been applied to additional patients in their practice (74.5%). Many respondents also felt more confident managing chronic pain (74.5%), more confident prescribing buprenorphine-naloxone for chronic pain (41.8%), and more willing to prescribe buprenorphine-naloxone for chronic pain (36.4%). Some had even prescribed buprenorphine-naloxone for chronic pain for the first time because of the case conference (30.9%). Case conferences between UCPC interdisciplinary chronic pain team members and referring primary care clinicians may be a valuable service to support referring providers in the care of their patients and to increase the capacity of the primary care system to manage chronic pain.