Why Another Set of Pain Guidelines?
With so many pain guidelines already available, why create more? At Northwest Pain Guidance, we focus on filling practice gaps identified by our clinical advisory group. Our goal is to provide concise, easy-to-use practice guides that directly address the common questions providers face in primary care.
We produce three types of resources:
New Guidelines
These are recently developed (within the last two years), up-to-date, and designed for easy online use. Our latest release covers buprenorphine, and a guideline on low back pain is currently in development.
Legacy Guidelines
Although developed several years ago and not recently updated, these guidelines continue to receive significant web traffic and remain relevant. Topics include:
- Opioid tapering
- The art of difficult conversations
- Pain management in older adults
- Pain control in cancer and palliative care
- Medications that require special caution
Curated Reference Summaries
These are not formal guidelines but collections of the most credible, current references on specific topics. Each reference is summarized with treatment recommendations and linked to the source. We also synthesize a consensus of key recommendations. Topics include:
Our mission is to help primary care providers with challenging topics for diagnosing and treating pain. We would be very grateful for feedback on the usefulness of these practice guides and any recommendations for other areas we should consider for future guidance. Email to: info@northwestpainguidance.org.