Heal Initiative

The NIH HEAL (Helping to END Addiction Long-term) Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network (ERN) is part of a national initiative to speed scientific solutions to the national opioid public health crisis. The HEAL initiative seeks to improve pain care through understanding the development of chronic pain and by accelerating and improving the process of therapy development to rapidly move discoveries into clinical practice to alleviate the burden of pain.

The Goal for the HEAL Pain ERN is to inform clinicians about the effectiveness of interventions that will improve functional outcomes and reduce pain across the continuum of acute to chronic pain associated with many types of diseases or conditions or pain presenting as a disease itself. The studies in the HEAL Pain ERN must address questions within the mission and research interests of participating NIH Institutes and Centers and evaluate preventive strategies or interventions including medications, biologics, procedures, medical and assistive devices and technologies, diagnostic testing, behavioral change, rehabilitation strategies, complementary therapies, integrated approaches, and delivery system strategies in well controlled trials.

The 2019 Heal Pain ERN funding cycle funded four grantees, with a focus on finding methods other than opioids to manage pain. These studies are supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Trial Innovation Network (TlN), which provides help with: trial design; project management and leadership; data collection and monitoring; site recruitment and coordination; and dissemination and logistics.