course, that means 3 out of 5 patients did not dispose of their opioids
properly. But that rate is better than patients who received no educa-
tion at all — the study showed less than 10% of these patients fol-
lowed proper disposal protocols.
Dr. Hannon suggests you provide educational materials about opioid
disposal to surgeons, who can then pass the information along to their
patients. He adds that it's important for patients to be educated more
than once and through different methods — pre-operatively, post-
operatively, and through post-op calls or texts.
"At the end of the day, we're probably not where we need to be in
terms of the percentage of patients who actually are properly dispos-
ing of their pills," says Dr. Hannon. "But I think if you're able to raise
the baseline rate of opioid disposal from 10% to 35%, that's a huge
deal. If you're able to prevent at least one diversion of an opioid pill
and prevent one life lost, that's a job well done."
OSM
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