Changing Acute Pain Management to Improve Patient Outcomes: An Educational Approach

• Published in: Journal of pain and symptom management Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 277 - 287
• Main Authors: Dalton, Jo Ann, Blau, William, Lindley, Celeste, Carlson, John, Youngblood, Richard, Greer, Susan M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.04.1999; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Acute Disease; Biological and medical sciences; Education, Medical, Continuing; Education, Nursing, Continuing; Education, Pharmacy, Continuing; General aspects; Hospitals, Community; Humans; Medical sciences; Outcome Assessment (Health Care); outcome measures; Pain, Postoperative - psychology; Pain, Postoperative - therapy; Patient Education as Topic; Planification. Prevention (methods). Intervention. Evaluation; Postoperative pain; professional education; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Quality Assurance, Health Care; United States; United States; professional education; outcome measures; Postoperative pain; Human; Postoperative; Evaluation; Pain; Treatment; Acute; Hospital; Occupational training; Recommendation
• ISSN: 0885-3924; 1873-6513
• DOI: 10.1016/S0885-3924(98)00142-0

The United States Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) Acute Pain Management Guidelines were written to provide a scientific basis for practice. Educational programs designed to promote use of the guidelines may change practice in community hospitals. This article describes the development and implementation of an education program for nurses, physicians, and pharmacists in six community hospitals. Program content addressing the use of continuous quality improvement (CQI) teams, detailed pain histories, application of algorithms and dose calculation is described; direct and indirect outcome measures are reviewed. Six months after the program, all three experimental sites reported use of the AHCPR Guidelines in practice. Nurses reported that assessment and documentation of patients’ duration of pain were perceived to be the most important caregiver behaviors providing benefit to patients: Across all respondents’ reports of regularly performed activities, the activity performed by the largest proportion was assessing and documenting pain using a 0–10 rating scale. J. Pain Symptom Manage 1999;17:277–287.