Making Integrated Multimodal Pain Care a Reality: A Path Forward

Excerpt

In the fall of 2015, the White House convened a national summit involving multiple federal agencies to address the national epidemic of opioid use. At that summit, the Secretary for Veterans Affairs (VA) Robert MacDonald volunteered the VA to take the lead in examining the role of complementary and integrative health (CIH) approaches as a way to reduce over-use of opioids in chronic pain management. As the largest integrated healthcare system in the USA, VA serves a patient population heavily affected by chronic pain.1 Since 2000, over five million veterans receiving care in VA were diagnosed with chronic musculoskeletal pain.2 VA was an early leader in developing a comprehensive national pain management strategy3 and then an initiative that significantly reduced high-risk opioid prescribing (i.e., Opioid Safety Initiative). Moreover, VA has provided chiropractic care for more than 10 years and has more recently expanded CIH offerings such as acupuncture, yoga, and meditation. …