VA Opioid Safety Initiative

Also: OSI

Veterans Health Administration system-wide initiative launched in October 2013 to make opioid prescribing safer. Every VA facility got a dashboard that flags patients on high doses or on opioids plus benzodiazepines, and a local clinical lead to push prescribers to act on it; academic detailing and naloxone distribution were added in 2014-2015.

Years: 2013–now
Country: United States
Topic: Opioids
Asks people to: Stop
Strategy: Multi level community
Channel: Clinical setting
Audience: Clinicians Military and veterans
VA prescribers (primary care, pain, mental health) at all VA medical centers; veterans on long-term opioid therapy are the patients affected.

Evidence

ObservationalPositive

Interrupted time series, all VHA patients with outpatient opioid fills, Oct 2012-Sep 2014 (Lin 2017): beyond the pre-existing downward trend, OSI was associated with 331 fewer patients per month on >100 MEQ/day, 164 fewer on >200 MEQ/day, and 781 fewer per month on concurrent benzodiazepines. Patients on >100 MEQ fell from 55,722 to 46,780 (16%). No comparison system; reductions in prescribing are not outcomes like overdose or pain.

Sponsor (who paid)

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration Federal government, funder and creator

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Related campaigns

Sources

Lin LA, Bohnert ASB, Kerns RD et al. Impact of the Opioid Safety Initiative on opioid-related prescribing in veterans. Pain 158(5):833-839 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000837 · PMID 28240996
Bounthavong M et al. Implementation evaluation of academic detailing on naloxone prescribing trends at the VHA (background on OSI 2013 and OEND 2014). Health Serv Res evaluation · 2019 · PMID 31313839

Research notes

Clinician-facing program. Discovered 2026-10-22 for #17 (clinician-campaigns pass). Launch month (October 2013) from the Lin 2017 abstract (PubMed). VA-reported later figures (e.g. high-dose patients down 80% by FY2020) seen only in search snippets of VA material; not added. Not a media campaign: a dashboard-plus-champion quality program; included because Kalman asked for clinician-targeted efforts. Procurement search 2026-10-22: no VA contract for the Opioid Safety Initiative's communication found; only a 2022 pain management/opioid safety task order under a VHA transformation IDIQ (Titan Alpha). Not credited. Reuse terms checked 2026-10-23 by an AI research pass for #47; not yet reviewed by a person.

Record cases/va-opioid-safety-initiative.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign