As part of the Kentuckiana Health Collaborative’s (KHC) ongoing focus on high value behavioral healthcare and third year of partnership with the Kentucky Opioid Response Effort (KORE), the KHC has developed updated thier “Opioids and the Workplace: An Employer Toolkit for Supporting Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery” toolkit to now contain an additional section specific to pain management. The toolkit, previously released in PDF form, has also been transformed into an online, interactive toolkit with an accompanying worksheet for employers to utilize their data to understand the status of their workforce’s substance and opioid use disorder (OUD) risks and trends.
“Opioids and the Workplace” provides recommendations and tools for employers to support their employees and their dependents in prevention, treatment, and recovery from opioid misuse and OUD and contains considerations and strategies for employers to create workplace policies and benefit design related to opioid use.
The interactive, expanded toolkit and data analytics worksheet was released April 22 at the “KHC Pain Symposium: Moving Upstream of the Opioid Epidemic” virtual event. The half day event explored pain – where we’ve come from, where we are, and how employers can drive where we need to go. The event was the culmination of a six-month cohort of employers dedicated to becoming partners in the fighting the opioid crisis in Kentucky. The cohort, representing 23% of commercially-insured Kentuckians, dived deeper into the how the KHC’s “Opioids and the Workplace” toolkit recommendations can be implemented by national and local employers through healthcare best practice sharing of benefit design and workplace policies.
The KHC Pain Symposium agenda included topics such as evidence-based treatment, the role of key stakeholders, the context of pain reliever misuse in the workforce, employer-sponsored insurance benchmarking, and resources and next steps for employers.
To access the online toolkit with expanded material, visit the “Opioids and the Workplace” webpage here.
