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Pain Management |
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Pain management is the process of providing medical care that alleviates or reduces pain. Management of pain is extremely important in healthcare because patients who are in severe pain often become agitated or depressed and have poorer treatment outcomes.
Mild to moderate pain can usually be treated with analgesics, such as aspirin or ibuprofen. Chronic or severe pain often requires the use of narcotics or other medications. Many patients suffer side effects from medications, but the reduction of pain often outweighs the side effects when managing pain.
Non-medication procedures can also be useful in pain management programs. Changing a bedridden patient regularly or using pillows for more comfortable support can be effective. Also, massage, acupuncture, acupressure and biofeedback have proven to help in controlling pain for some people.
National Pain Collaborative
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sponsored the Corporate Nursing Home Improvement Collaborative from April 2003 to August 2004 to help centralize quality improvement efforts in nursing home care across the country—and to ease residents’ pain. Beverly was one of eight nursing home companies selected to participate in the project.
Project participants implemented creative approaches to reducing pain in residents in addition to using traditional medication adjustments. These approaches, which were found to be very effective in reducing residents’ pain, included exercise, physical therapy, music and aroma therapy, hydro therapy (whirlpools) and massage.
Twenty Beverly nursing homes participated in the collaborative, led by the Colorado Foundation of Medical Care and the Rhode Island Quality Partners, both nonprofit Quality Improvement Organizations contracted with Medicare.
The collaborative provided a number of benefits within Beverly, including access to cutting-edge information, improved quality of care for our residents, marketing leverage to participate in national quality improvement collaboratives, and sharing best practices and lessons learned with others participating in the collaborative.
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