NCIRE Board Member, NCIRE-supported Principal Investigator Dr. Karen Seal’s SFVAHCS Integrative Pain Team featured in JAMA Internal Medicine article

 

Dr. Karen Seal is the Chief of Integrative Health and serves as the Medical Director of the Integrated Pain Team (IPT), an interdisciplinary clinic model first established at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) for Veterans with chronic pain and opioid dependence.

 

NCIRE-supported Principal Investigator and Board Member, Dr. Karen Seal is the senior author of the article in JAMA titled, “Care Models to Improve Pain and Reduce Opioids Among Patients Prescribed Long-Term Opioid Therapy: The VOICE Randomized Clinical Trial”. In the VOICE trial—among 820 veterans at 10 VA sites across the country—the SFVAHCS IPT model consisting of a medical provider with expertise in pain management, a pain pharmacist, and pain psychologist was equally effective as another care model (Pharmacist Collaborative Management) in reducing pain and opioid dosage in Veterans. The SFVAHCS IPT clinic is staffed by Elizabeth Gregg, NP (Clinical Director); Kim Banks, NP; Donovan Jenkins, NP; Erin Watson, PsyD; Payal Mapara, PsyD; Cecelia Bess, PhD; Emily Yao, Pharm D; and Nisha Iyer, Pharm D. Other VOICE IPT clinicians were Christina Tat, Pharm D; Sara Librodo, Pharm D; Elizabeth Son, Pharm D; and Caitlin Garvey, NP.

 

The article was also co-authored by NCIRE-supported Principal Investigators Drs. Jennifer Manual, Brian Borsari, Natalie Purcell, and Ellen Herbst.

 

Learn more: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2827636