Transforming VA Pain Care
The Six Essentials Elements of Good Pain Care
1. Educate Veterans/families to promote self-efficacy and shared decision making; provide access to all relevant resources
2. Educate/train all team members to their discipline specific competencies, including team based care
3. Develop and integrate non-pharmacological modalities into care plans
4. Institute evidence based medication prescribing, use of pain procedures and safe opioid use (universal precautions)
5. Implement approaches for bringing the Veteran’s whole team together such as virtual pain consulting (SCAN-ECHO, e-consults, tele-health, clinical video tele-consultation and education) and for maintaining ongoing communication between team members
6. Establish metrics to monitor pain care and outcomes at both the individual level and the population level
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New online training course provides practical advice for helping complex patients who do not respond to standard medical treatments. Continuing medical education credit is available. |
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See the "latest" Veterans/Public - Complementary And Integrative Health section about Home Practice Exercises. − Yoga/Tai Chi − Physical Activity - Physical Therapy & Chair Exercises − Acupressure |
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Visit the CBT-CP section to learn how it can be used as an effective treatment for reducing the negative impacts of chronic pain. − CBT-CP for Veterans − CBT-CP for Providers |
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Pain in Women Veterans. − Chronic Pain - Women Veterans Health Care (va.gov) − Podcast ‘She Wears the Boots”: Podcasts - Women Veterans Health Care (va.gov) |
Monthly Call
Resources
Research
Monthly Call
Spotlight on Pain Management
1st Tuesday of every Month
• Date: April 4, 2023
• Speaker: Anne Black, PhD and Blair Curtis, M.Ed.
• Title: use of VA's Whole Health System of Care by Veterans on Long-term Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain
• Time: 11:00am-12:00pm EST
To join the HSR&D CyberSeminar ListServ and receive the monthly call reminder, please send your name and email address to: HSRD.CyberSeminar@va.gov .
To access past Cyberseminars link: http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/cyberseminars/catalog-archive.cfm?#Archived (filter on - Spotlight on Pain Management)
VHA Pain Listserv: If you are interested in joining the VA Pain ListServ, please click here for more information! The VHA Pain Listserv provides VA pain practitioners and researchers with a forum for the exchange of information and ideas.
VHA Pain PSYCHOLOGY Listserv: This listserv is geared towards mental health providers with an interest and expertise in pain management and discussion of discipline-specific issues. If you are interested in joining, please email Dr. Stacey Sandusky.
To learn more go to "What's New Page."
Resources
Help Available
Get started by learning about the pain management resources that are available to Veterans/patients and providers through the VA.
Explore useful pain management information, to include pain education and pain management resources. This website facilitates effective pain management by providing convenient, centralized access to resources for the provision of pain services within the VA healthcare system.
Learn More about Pain Management:
- Opioid Safety
- For Veterans/Public
- For Providers
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain (CBT-CP)
- Current News & Events
- Research
Research
Cutting Edge
VA supports research to create innovations and advance pain management health care.
New research about chronic pain is helping doctors with better diagnosis and treatment. Given the high prevalence of pain and associated disability in the veteran population, research addressing the mechanisms, assessment, and management of pain has been designated as a priority by many federal funding agencies.
For more information go to the Pain Management Research page.
Pain Management - Web Resources
- VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG)
- VA Research on Pain Management
- Whole Health - Chronic Pain Management Tools
- VHA Directive 2009-053, Pain Management - Veterans Affairs
- National Library of Medicine (NLM) - Opioid Addiction and Treatment Portal *
- National Academy of Medicine - Chronic Pain Journey Map*
- Whole Health - Podcast Series for Pain Management
- Whole Health - Complementary and Integrative Health
- Veterans Health Library - Chronic Pain
Explore by Pain Management Topic
 Pain Management - Home |
CBT-CP |
| Current Events/News |
Opioid Safety |
| For Providers |
Research |
| For Veterans/Public |
Pain & Covid-19 |
Opioids - Literature Alerts for VA Staff
The VA Library Network will provide VA staff an index of recent articles related to opioids and many other areas of interest right to your work mailbox. If you are interested in subscribing to this alert, visit the VHA National Desktop Library Literature e-Alerts page and the Weekly PubMed/MEDLINE Alerts section to sign up.
Link out to full text articles using the blue VA Library Full Text icon: 
If an article of interest does not have a VA Library Full Text icon, search your library’s online journals and online books listing with the citation’s PubMed ID or journal title to check for a local subscription. Contact your local VA library if you need assistance retrieving full text articles (please note, this library directory is only available on the VA Intranet).
If you have questions or suggestions for pain-related resources, please send an email to VHA Pain Management Webmaster Group. Questions about personal care should be directed to the local VA facility.
Email Updates
