M A R C H 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 9
O
ur facility knew the ben-
efits of administering IV
acetaminophen preoper-
atively to reduce post-op pain, but
it was always in short supply or
cost prohibitive. To find out if oral
acetaminophen produced benefi-
cial results we administered 1,000
mg to gallbladder patients before
surgery in the second half of 2016,
and most arrived in the PACU
resting comfortably without feel-
ing sick or nauseous. Only 7% of
these patients needed to stay in
recovery for more than two hours,
compared with 26% of the
patients during the first six
months of 2016. The number of patients who needed three or more
post-op narcotics fell from 7.6% to 0%. The results were so good and the
risk to patients so low that we rolled out the practice to our entire gen-
eral surgery population later in 2017 and have done it ever since. We
continue to be impressed that something so inexpensive and so simple
to implement has yielded such tremendous results for our patients.
Lisa Leathers, BSN, RN
CSA Surgical Center
Columbia, Mo.
lleathers@csasurgical.com
PAIN MANAGEMENT
Oral Acetaminophen Effective Option
• GAME CHANGER The oral form of acetaminophen may reduce
postoperative pain as effectively as the more expensive and
harder to get IV form of the drug.
CSA
Surgical
Center
