The opioid epidemic is one of the largest health crises affecting the United States today.
OCRI developed and designed this initiative as an opioid use prevention and educational model with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of opioids prescribed for surgeries across healthcare systems.
This project was founded by OrthoCarolina sports surgeon Dr. Nady Hamid and is currently managed by the OrthoCarolina Research Institute (OCRI).
OCRI is an independent, non-profit 501(c)3 in Charlotte, NC that exists to facilitate relevant orthopedic research which advances orthopedic treatments, improves quality of life for patients, and educates the medical community.
This research would not be possible without the support and partnership of The Duke Endowment.
Our opioid reduction efforts were inspired by a patient who lost everything when he became addicted to his narcotics prescription after a routine shoulder surgery. When he returned to his doctor, Dr. Nady Hamid, years later and in recovery, to get his other shoulder replaced, he threw the curve ball of a career. This time around, he needed his surgery done without opioids during or after surgery.
When that surgery was a success, OCRI began a pilot study in 2015 to determine the efficacy of an opioid-free pain protocol in shoulder replacement surgery. The initial study showed the alternative pain management pathway to be effective in its patients. Our research team knew it was time to go bigger and enlisted to help of The Duke Endowment to expand research and social programming focused on combatting the growing opioid epidemic spreading across the state of NC.
So in 2017, we launched a larger clinical trial to further validate our findings. The study found the opioid-free protocol to be safe and effective in managing pain after surgery.
Now, the opioid minimizing pain protocol is being built into the standard of care at OrthoCarolina for patients who prefer treatment without opioids while OCRI continues to study the adoption and implementation of this pathway as it expands to healthcare systems across the Carolinas and beyond.
If you are interested in talking to our team about how to implement opioid reducing surgical techniques in your practice, please fill out the contact form and a member of our team will be in touch.
The US makes up 5% of the world’s population, and 75% of global prescribed opiate consumption.
50% of all opioid overdose deaths are from prescribed opioids.
Patients on opioids 3 days following surgery have a 67% chance they will still be on opioids five years later.
OCRI designed this initiative as an opioid use prevention and educational program with the main goal of reducing the use of opioids, where appropriate, across the healthcare system.
Our goals include:
Unidentified breakthroughs in combatting the opioid epidemic are just waiting to be discovered, but we can’t do it without the support of generous people like you.
