Starting a patient-controlled epidural anesthesia infusion while the patient is still in the operating room may help provide better pain control. Read more here.
An epidural involves placing a tiny tube called a catheter in the patient’s back to deliver pain medication. An epidural may be used during surgery or after surgery, especially for those that may result in a substantial amount of pain. If it is used following a surgery, the patient can self-administer the pain medicine as needed with the push of a button.
Several issues can delay the set-up of the epidural infusion once the patient arrives in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), including a lack of supplies or a busy pharmacy. To address these potential delays, researchers proposed a project to implement a new workflow to start epidural infusions in the OR (operating room).
“Effective pain management after surgery is a crucial issue in health care, and this streamlined approach for initiating epidural infusions in the OR reduces delays in the patient getting pain relief,” said Murphy Owens, M.D., a lead author of the study and anesthesiology resident at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York. “Additionally, research shows that using a PCEA can reduce patients’ need for opioids to manage their pain.”
When researchers started the project in December 2022, very few epidural infusions were started in the OR. Two months after launching the project, 90 % were started in the OR. The research team surveyed 16 anesthesiologists and 13 nurses about their experience with the new workflow compared to the previous one:
The project focused on streamlining the process for epidurals placed for major abdominal surgeries, chest surgeries (such as lung cancer resections), urologic surgeries and gynecological surgeries, or other surgeries where postoperative pain is expected to be substantial.
This article is based on a press release by the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Image source: Marc Sendra Martorell, unsplash
