Our Research

Use Case: Precision Opioid Prescribing

Investigators:

Chad Brummett, MD

Chad Brummett is a professor at the University of Michigan, where he is the Senior Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Anesthesiology. He has more than 160 publications, including articles in top journals such as JAMA, JAMA Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Annals of Surgery. He is the Co-Director of the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan OPEN), which aims to apply a preventative approach to the opioid epidemic in the US through appropriate prescribing after surgery, dentistry, and emergency medicine.  In addition, his research interests include predictors of acute and chronic post-surgical pain and failure to derive benefit for interventions and surgeries primarily performed to treat pain.  He is the Co-PI of three major NIH grants studying these concepts, and also receives funding from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA and the CDC.

Amy Bohnert, PhD, MHS

Amy S.B. Bohnert is a mental health services researcher with training in public health who focuses her research on epidemiology and brief interventions regarding substance use and related disorders. Within a team of collaborators at the University of Michigan and the Department of Veterans Affairs, she has led a number of projects related to overdose and prescription drug safety. A number of her research activities have been specifically aimed at improving care occurring in substance use disorder treatment settings. Dr. Bohnert has demonstrated a particular expertise in applying epidemiology methods to the analysis of electronic health records-based datasets to answer important questions for health services delivery. Dr. Bohnert earned her PhD in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and completed her postdoctoral fellowship with the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center in Ann Arbor, MI. She has an appointment as an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan.

Video: Reducing Opioid Misuse
This is a presentation given by Chad Brummett at the virtual Research Update for Precision Health Participants on September 14, 2022.

 

Use Case: Precision Opioid Prescribing

Precision Health at the University of Michigan will support a variety of precision-related research projects — across a broad spectrum of disciplines — occurring at U-M. Our focus on opioid prescribing in the pre-surgical setting presents a use case that will allow us to test and refine the resources and infrastructure most useful to researchers—knowledge we can apply to subsequent Precision Health projects.

Opioid misuse is a serious public health crisis that’s been sweeping across the United States. Currently, 78 Americans die each day due to opioid-related overdoses. The vast majority of individuals who become dependent on prescription opioids receive their first dose following surgical care. Precision Health at the University of Michigan is focusing on understanding the factors that put people at risk of long-term opioid use so that these patients can be prescribed alternative pain management strategies when having surgery.

An important resource Precision Health will draw on for this use case is the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network (Michigan-OPEN). Led by U-M researchers, Michigan OPEN aims to ensure appropriate acute pain care following surgery, while protecting patients and communities by raising awareness about opioid misuse and creating interventions that reduce postoperative opioid prescribing and patient consumption.

The Michigan Genomics Initiative (MGI) is another valuable data resource that will inform Precision Health’s work on precision opioid prescribing. Containing health information from 70,000+ subjects, MGI is an institutional repository of DNA and genetic and phenotypic data for future medical research. MGI is committed to advancing the understanding of health, wellness, and the development of disease; to predicting response to treatments; and to advancing drug development.