NCT00470652

Management of Acute Pain in the Emergency Department

Management of Acute Pain in the Emergency Department:Impact of a Computer-Assisted Support

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 631 (actual)
• Sponsor: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 16 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Oligoanalgesia1 has been widely recognized as an issue in emergency department.The purpose of our study is to assess the impact of the implementation of a computer-assisted support program to improve pain management in our ED.

Detailed description

Inadequate pain management remains a major challenge for health care providers. Despite extensive research on the mechanisms of acute pain, identification of factors leading to poor pain management and development of evidence-based strategies, the transfer of this knowledge into effective clinical practices has been surprisingly slow. Oligoanalgesia1 has been widely recognized as an issue in emergency department (ED) patients. Acute pain is reported by 60-80% of ED inpatients but is frequently undertreated. Overall, an insufficient proportion of patients with acute pain receive any type of analgesia, and pain relief remains unsatisfactory. We showed that the implementation of guidelines improved pain management. However, rotation of the medical \& nursing staff leads to the forgetting of guidelines. The purpose of our study is to assess the impact of the implementation of a computer-assisted support program to improve pain management in our ED.

Conditions

• Pain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	computer-assisted decision support	at the end of the pre-intervention period, the patient flow software was modified to open popup windows automatically when pain intensity was not documented or pain was not reevaluated within the recommended interval. The popup window also detailed appropriate pain treatment guidelines based on the documented pain intensity. In addition, the patient's icon in the flow software changed from black to red when pain intensity was \>4/10. After a 10-day test period, the post-intervention data collection started.

Timeline

• Start date: 2007-05-01
• Completion: 2008-09-01
• First posted: 2007-05-08
• Last updated: 2009-01-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Switzerland