Statewide Chronic Pain Clinical Network

The Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work has been estab­lished to improve the pro­vi­sion of inte­grat­ed, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary care for peo­ple with chron­ic pain.

Cur­rent Projects

Low­ Back Pain
We are estab­lish­ing bet­ter care path­ways for peo­ple suf­fer­ing low back pain to improve time­li­ness and appro­pri­ate­ness of treat­ment. This is being done through greater under­stand­ing of rel­e­vant clin­i­cal and sys­tems fac­tors, as informed by data, cur­rent evi­dence and stake­hold­er input.

Tran­si­tion Pain Services
We are inves­ti­gat­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of imple­ment­ing tran­si­tion pain ser­vices (TPS), sim­i­lar to mod­els used in the UK and Cana­da. The TPS mod­el aims to:

  • pro­vide short-term, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary care to help peo­ple man­age acute pain before and after surgery
  • reduce the onset of chron­ic pain
  • pro­vide con­sumers with edu­ca­tion and strate­gies to man­age pain
  • sup­port con­sumers to taper opi­oids where appro­pri­ate, reduc­ing asso­ci­at­ed risks and harms

Opi­oid Stewardship
Work­ing with Office of the Chief Phar­ma­cist, Clin­i­cal Gov­er­nance Unit (CGU) in the Depart­ment for Health and Well­be­ing and local hos­pi­tal cham­pi­ons, we are help­ing hos­pi­tals meet the new Aus­tralian Com­mis­sion on Safe­ty and Qual­i­ty in Health Care’s Opi­oid Anal­gesic Stew­ard­ship in Acute Pain Clin­i­cal Care Stan­dard. This aims to ensure opi­oid use is appro­pri­ate­ly man­aged and reviewed to min­imise any risk of harm to patients. 

Low Back Pain Clin­i­cal Care Standard 

We are also assist­ing the CGU to help hos­pi­tals meet the new Aus­tralian Com­mis­sion on Safe­ty and Qual­i­ty in Health Care’s Low Back Pain Clin­i­cal Care Stan­dard, which describes the stan­dard of care peo­ple with low back pain can expect to receive.

Upcom­ing Projects

First Nations Pain Management 

Ear­ly dis­cus­sions are under­way with poten­tial part­ners about a new project to con­sid­er ways to improve pain man­age­ment for Abo­rig­i­nal South Australians.

Pain Man­age­ment for Old­er South Australians 

Work­ing with the Reg­istry of Senior Aus­tralians (ROSA), we will explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve opi­oid use in pain care for old­er South Australians.

Ado­les­cent Pain Services 

Sup­port­ed by grant fund­ing and work­ing with UniSA, Men­zies Cen­tre for Health Pol­i­cy and Eco­nom­ics and oth­er part­ners, we will co-design a com­mu­ni­ty-based, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary mod­el of care for ado­les­cents with chron­ic pain. This will ensure ado­les­cents have bet­ter access to care in the com­mu­ni­ty and will act as a pilot that can be used nationally.

Hear from Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Anne Burke about the Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work as part of the 2022 CEIH Con­ver­sa­tion Series

Statewide Chronic Pain Clinical Network Steering Committee

A/​Prof Anne Burke (Chair)

Psy­chol­o­gist, Co-direc­tor Psy­chol­o­gy, CALHN

Ms Edwina Shannon

Occu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­pist, Ade­laide Chron­ic Pain Clinic

Dr Jac­in­ta Johnson

Senior Phar­ma­cist – Research, SA Pharmacy

Dr Jack­ie Yeoh

GP Liai­son Offi­cer, Inter­me­di­ate Care, RACGP

Ms Julianne Flower

Return to Work SA

Dr Kin Lau

Pain Fel­low, RACGP

Ms Leah Trotta

Clin­i­cal Advi­sor rep; Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Ellvee Consulting

Mr Marc Apolloni

Clin­i­cal Coor­di­na­tor, Health Path­ways, Ade­laide PHN

Mr Mark Cox

Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist, PainMedSA

Mr Mark Jones

Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er, North­ern Pain Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Ser­vice, NALHN

Ms Mary Wing

Con­sumer representative

Dr Michael Findlay

Addic­tion Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist, Drug and Alco­hol Ser­vices SA, SALHN

Ms Nic­ki Edge

Exec­u­tive Man­ag­er — Health Inno­va­tion, Design and Inte­gra­tion, Coun­try SA PHN

Dr Nic­ki Ferencz

Ser­vice Lead, Pae­di­atric Chron­ic Pain Ser­vice, Senior Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist, WCHN; Clin­i­cal Senior Lec­tur­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Adelaide

Mr Noël Markham

Allied Health Ser­vice Man­ag­er, Senior Phys­io­ther­a­pist, Pain Man­age­ment Unit

Dr Samuel Whittle

Senior Con­sul­tant Rheuma­tol­o­gist, TQEH, CALHN

Ms Susan (Sue) Edwards

Whyal­la Out­reach Chron­ic Pain Coor­di­na­tor, Whyal­la Hospital/​Flinders & Upper North LHN, TQEH

Dr Tim Semple

Anaes­thetist, Act­ing HOU Pain Man­age­ment Unit and spe­cial­ist anaes­thetist, CALHN

Network Lead

Associate Professor Anne Burke

Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work Vision

A strong, con­nect­ed and inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice which pro­motes evi­­dence-informed pre­ven­tion, ear­ly inter­ven­tion and man­age­ment of pain across the life span for all South Australians.

Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work Goals

The Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work has been estab­lished to improve the pro­vi­sion of inte­grat­ed, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary care for peo­ple with chron­ic pain. It aims to:

  • Fos­ter improved recog­ni­tion and under­stand­ing of chron­ic pain and its effec­tive man­age­ment in the community
  • Fos­ter sys­tems devel­op­ment and trans­par­ent shar­ing of data to bet­ter sup­port cross-sec­­tor ser­vice design, deliv­ery and collaboration
  • Sup­port improve­ments in com­mu­ni­ty, pri­ma­ry health and hos­pi­tal set­tings to ensure time­ly access to evi­­dence-informed care for all South Aus­tralians liv­ing with pain
  • Build an inte­grat­ed Com­mu­ni­ty of Prac­tice that opti­mis­es the expe­ri­ence and out­comes of chron­ic pain management.

Doc­u­ments and Addi­tion­al Information

Doc­u­ments

Have a question?

Or want to know more about the Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work?
Please email CEIH.​ChronicPain@​sa.​gov.​au.

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