Fig. 2.

Postoperative opioid use—X chart. The mean postoperative opioid usage in terms of Morphine Milligram Equivalents ((MME) is plotted. The upper (UCL) and lower (LCL) control limits are the 3 standard deviations from the mean. The wider control limits in the baseline period highlight that the process had a lot of variation, including 2 patients that were outliers outside of the UCL. The total MME was trending down just before the new protocol implementation as we developed the new standardized protocol. The new protocol intervention added to that decline and, most significantly, the control limits narrowed, indicating less variability and more reliability in the process for similar outcomes.