A
safe and speedy
recovery is the
result of a compre-
hensive process
that begins long
before incisions are made and
continues well after patients exit
your facility. From the moment
patients first meet with one of
your nurses for pre-operative edu-
cation sessions until final physical
therapy sessions are in the books,
there are myriad opportunities to
enhance their recoveries — and
virtually guarantee they spread the
word about the peerless care they
received from your facility.
Ahead of the pain
Ultimately, positive recoveries
depend on controlling patients'
post-op pain in an efficient and
targeted manner. Unfortunately,
the pain associated with many
orthopedic procedures, especially
spine surgeries, is still primarily
controlled with high-dosages of
opioids, which is archaic and bar-
baric — not to mention inefficient
and side-effect inducing. The good
news is we're beginning to use a
more targeted approach to pain
control that makes low-dose opioids the last resort
for post-op pain control. What's more, we're bolster-
ing this approach with better pre-op education and
more convenient and effective post-op rehab.
A multimodal analgesia (MMA) approach is the
way to go. Using different-acting medications in
small amounts means a smaller amount of post-
operative opioids are needed, which in turn removes
a cascade of negative side effects for patients. A suc-
cessful MMA protocol — coupled with solid pre- and
post-op patient education and rehab — is crucial for
outpatient orthopedic facilities.
At least 85% of spine repairs, the specialty in
which I focus, are open surgeries, which often
require providers to medicate patients with large
amounts of opioids afterward. Of course, opioids
are also used to manage post-op pain after plenty of
other common orthopedic procedures such as
3 0 • S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0
Kern Singh, MD | Chicago
Recoveries Patients Rave About
Improved pre-op education, multimodal analgesia and
virtual physical therapy decrease post-op pain and recovery times.
PREVENTATIVE MEASURE Patients of Kern Singh, MD, receive small amounts of opioid-free drugs before and during
surgery to minimize the need for large amounts of narcotics.
Midwest
Orthopaedics
at
Rush
