Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Special Edition: Opioids - January 2020 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 members who face untold challenges. When a loved one suffers from addiction, the struggle impacts numerous lives, causing a wide- spread emotional and financial toll that you can't fully understand unless you live through it. Let's do what's necessary to improve how we manage perioperative pain, so others don't have to endure what my family has had to overcome. Start by communicating with patients before the day of surgery to set reasonable expectations about how they'll feel after surgery and to edu- cate them on how you'll manage their discomfort reasonably and safely. Patients need to understand that they will experience some pain after surgery, and that your team will do everything in their power to mini- mize it. There are many alternative or adjuvant techniques available to help you reduce or even eliminate the use of opioids, from regional blocks to multimodal anesthesia protocols, which you'll read about on the following pages. Over the past decade, anesthesia providers have developed more versatile regional block techniques that have a greater chance of success thanks to the use of ultrasound-directed needle placements. We routinely use IV or PO acetaminophen, NSAIDs and gabapentinoids. We have developed enhanced pre-op protocols and post-op algorithms, which are encompassed in Enhanced Recovery After Anesthesia (ERAS) programs. We aren't as reliant on opioids at any phase of the perioperative period. More than ever, we work with other surgical team members to implement multimodal regimens that help us stay ahead of pain. Safe and comfortable My adopted home state of Florida, as the epicenter of the pill mill phenomenon, played an especially egregious role in the cause of

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