The Power of Shared Decision-Making: Collaboration With Patients and Families to Support Effective Pain Management

Estimates indicate more than 50 million Americans are impacted by chronic pain. Chronic pain can impact daily activity and overall quality of life and can often co-occur with mental health conditions. Recognizing the complexity of chronic pain management and the need for more flexible and individualized pain management practices, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its pain guideline in 2022 to underscore the importance of person-centered care. Person-centered care focuses on the goals and well-being of the individual patient and is supported by active patient-clinician collaboration and shared decision-making.

This session will focus on effective strategies for person-centered care, specifically in the context of chronic pain management. As a part of this session, speakers will share helpful practices and feature the person-centered chronic pain journey map, an interactive tool created by the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic. The journey map is a web-based tool that describes the chronic pain journey from the perspective of those living with pain across five key stages. Each stage reflects a pivotal part of the chronic pain management process and identifies common emotions and experiences encountered by the individual living with chronic pain, key challenges, and helpful actions and resources that individuals, clinicians, payers, and health systems, can use to support and better meet the needs of those seeking pain care.

Learning Objectives:

  • Describe shared decision-making and how it can be used to facilitate person-centered care for patients with chronic pain.

  • Discuss the patient perspective on shared decision-making related to their chronic pain care and helpful practices to improve collaboration.

  • Explain the purpose of the National Academy of Medicine Chronic Pain Journey Map and its relevance for patients.

  • Discuss how patients and their clinicians can use the Chronic Pain Journey Map as part of shared decision-making to improve pain care.

(1.25 Credits)