Papers of the Week

Managing postoperative pain requires an individualized approach in order to balance adequate pain control with risk of persistent opioid use and narcotic abuse associated with inappropriately outsized narcotic prescriptions. Shared decision-making has been proposed to address individual pain management needs. We report here the results of a quality improvement initiative instituting prescribing guidelines using shared decision-making and preoperative pain expectation and management education to decrease excess opioid pills after surgery and improve patient satisfaction.