The New Jersey Pain Care Collaborative

Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC) is a private, nonprofit agency that provides primary care, behavioral health, and social services to underserved populations in Connecticut. Through its Weitzman Institute, CHC promotes innovations to improve the quality of primary care as well as systems redesign focused on areas that have direct implications on the day-to-day practice of primary care for medically underserved patients.

Expanding upon the 2014-2015 Project ECHO for Pain Management and Opioid Addiction project, this project supports the New Jersey Pain Care Collaborative, a statewide initiative to help primary care providers better treat chronic pain and reduce their over-reliance on prescription opioids. The Collaborative also increases physicians’ expertise and confidence in using buprenorphine, an FDA-approved medication for managing opioid dependence, in caring for their patients who are already dependent on opioids.

Functioning through two regularly-scheduled “clinics”—one for pain care and another for buprenorphine treatment—the Collaborative uses the Project ECHO web-based videoconferencing model to build mentoring partnerships between primary care physicians in New Jersey and interdisciplinary teams of nationally recognized experts. The primary care physicians present case studies of their patients to the experts, who provide feedback, mentoring, and didactic presentations. The clinics are operated by the Connecticut-based Weitzman Institute, and providers will receive Continuing Medical Education credits for participating.

Ten of the practices participating in the pain care clinic also engage in a practice transformation component to improve policies and procedures that support the physicians in providing evidence-based pain care. Select participating sites also incorporate on-site chiropractic services for pain patients as an evidence-based alternative to prescription opioids.

Learn more about Community Health Center.

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