And then it happens.
The regional block you placed and the meds you administered wear
off, leaving the patient in enough pain to make your satisfaction
scores suffer.
What now?
Patients could pop a few painkillers, but that would put them at
risk of significant complications, not the least of which is becoming
the latest victim of the nationwide opioid epidemic. No, there's a
better way to augment the efforts you make on the day of surgery to
make patients as comfortable as possible. Placing continuous nerve
blocks (CNBs) to infuse surgical sites with analgesic agents is the
best option for prolonged pain control without resorting to opioids.
They're also the wave of the future. With more complex cases being
done in outpatient ORs, so now's the time to get your program up
and running.
Essential elements
Many facilities are adopting CNBs as standard procedure. At our
orthopedic hospital, we're looking into making CNBs routine for cer-
tain patients, both inpatient and outpatient. It makes sense to use
CNBs if you have a procedure that's definitely going to be followed by
more than a day of pain, but of course there are a lot of considera-
tions and it's not a transition you can expect to make overnight. Along
with all the potential benefits CNBs provide, they also come with a
fair share of challenges. The question becomes, how do you balance
your resources with the goal of providing optimal care when CNBs
are placed?
• Prepare patients. For one thing, you don't just place the block and
say goodbye to patients. With CNBs, you're providing a service that
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