PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jordan Hughes
AU  - Neelima Kale
AU  - Philip Day
TI  - OxyContin and the McDonaldization of chronic pain therapy in the USA
AID  - 10.1136/fmch-2018-000069
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - Family Medicine and Community Health
PG  - e000069
VI  - 7
IP  - 1
4099  - http://fmch.bmj.com/content/7/1/e000069.short
4100  - http://fmch.bmj.com/content/7/1/e000069.full
SO  - Fam Med Com Health2019 Jan 01; 7
AB  - Principles and practices gleaned from successful business enterprises have been used to transform the practice of medicine for decades. McDonaldization is the process in which principles which govern fast-food businesses, are applied to the practice of medicine. When left unchecked, the application of these principles can have devastating consequences, as in the treatment of chronic, non-malignant pain with OxyContin. At a time when there was growing concern about the under treatment of pain, Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, providing an efficient, predictable way of treating chronic pain. The liberal prescription of this drug contributed, and continues to contribute, to the opioid epidemic we see today. So, in confronting this epidemic, we must first understand the process of McDonaldization that has brought us here and then provide safe and effective chronic pain therapies even if they are expensive, time-consuming to deliver, difficult to measure, and unpredictable in their outcomes—all things we’ve grown to detest in our McDonaldized healthcare system.