Continuing Education

Stay informed of current best practices.

Provider and Pharmacist Continuing Education

For all health care professionals

Applying CDC’s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids aims to help healthcare providers apply CDC’s recommendations in clinical settings through patient scenarios, videos, knowledge checks, tips, and resources.

Pathways to Safer Opioid Use is an interactive training tool that promotes the appropriate, safe, and effective use of opioids to manage chronic pain. (Free via CDC TRAIN.)

Opioid Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution (OEND) Training is a one-hour course is designed to train providers on opioid safety/overdose prevention and training patients to respond to an overdose with naloxone. (Free via CDC TRAIN.)

Prescribe To Prevent offers an overdose education and prevention course called Overdose Prevention and Naloxone Rescue Kits for Prescribers and Pharmacists (free).

How to Administer Naloxone is a short video that reviews administration of four types of naloxone products.

Pharmacists

Fentanyl Test Strips: A Tool for Pharmacists in the Fight Against Opioid Overdose strips from the Executive Director of Holler Harm Reduction.

Syringe Access: Making Pharmacy Part of the Solution, Not the Problem, a video from the Governor’s Institute that highlights how pharmacies in North Carolina can be part of the solution to the rising rates of blood-borne infections like Hepatitis C, HIV, and endocarditis stemming from an increase of injection drug use.

The Governor’s Institute’s website, NC Multidisciplinary Collaboration on Opioid Use and Misuse, offers information and education on concrete, actionable steps that healthcare providers and systems can take to address the opioid crisis and prevent overdose and other fallout from opioid misuse.

The North Carolina Association of Pharmacists offers many resources on opioids.

APhA offers Naloxone 911: Strategies for Community Pharmacists free CE credit through March, 21, 2023.

The College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) offers a free Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) Education Program with ACPE credit.

For Prescribers

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) practitioner training portal offers links to free and at-a-cost tools, training, and technical assistance to practitioners in the fields of mental health and substance use disorders.

Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS), a grant project funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provides cutting edge, evidence-based educational resources, trainings, and mentoring on substance use disorders and co-occurring mental disorders for health care professionals. Among the trainings are:

Chronic Pain Core Curriculum for healthcare providers in treating chronic pain and addressing concerns about opioid use disorder. (Free.)
MAT Waiver Training, for providers who wish to apply for the waiver from the Drug Enforcement Agency to prescribe buprenorphine, one of three medications approved by the FDA for the treatment of opioid use disorder.
Naloxone for Opioid Safety discusses the concept of prescribing naloxone to lay persons for opioid safety and overdose reversal.

The ASAM website also has numerous educational opportunities.

North Carolina Medical Board on Opioid Prescribing also offers training and information relevant in North Carolina.

Screening for Substance Use in the Pain Management Setting details important steps clinicians can take to provide the best care for their pain patients.

For Dentists

North Carolina dentists: Since 2018, as a condition of dental license renewal all licensees who have a current DEA registration MUST complete an annual CE course of at least one hour that shall include, but not be limited to, instruction on controlled substance prescribing practice and controlled substance prescribing for chronic pain management. The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners offers a partial list of courses that fulfill the requirement.