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A N E S T H E S I A
earlier mobility and quicker discharges. It should go without saying
that all of this equals a more tolerable surgical experience, and the
happier you can keep your patients, the healthier your satisfaction
scores and overall bottom line.
As surgical providers, our No. 1 priority is obviously to advocate for
our patients, and nerve blocks let us do that. But if perioperative efficiency and throughput is your goal, you have to have a nerve block
program. The economic benefits of blocks are huge. Especially if your
surgeons and anesthetists have seen them expertly performed elsewhere, and especially now that savvy elective surgery patients are
being sold on the idea of the pain-free recovery that blocks offer.
Those can be compelling motivations to put them into practice.
What it takes
Building a block program at your facility takes a team effort, to be
sure. In addition to the process's champions — a couple of surgeons
and anesthesia providers who are passionate about regional anesthesia's possibilities and who take the lead in cooperating and putting it
into regular use — it requires nurses trained to skillfully expedite the
practice. The backing of administrators who know how blocks are
going to help them accomplish their goals, as mentioned above, is
also essential.
There is nothing that will end a budding block program quicker than
an adverse event, such as a patient who falls while trying to ambulate
N O V E M B E R 2012 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
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