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P A I N
M A N A G E M E N T
patients of the waiting room they enter through may exacerbate this discomfort. Providing them with a separate waiting room, a quiet, dimmed
environment with padded chairs where they can sign in and recline
among other patients who understand how they're feeling can ease the
path into treatment. Once the case volume at our multi-specialty surgery
center started booming, we catered to these needs with a separate
entrance, waiting room and pre-op for our pain patients.
Make it personal
Facilities that see pain management patients see them over and over
again. They are repeat customers in a way that your elective surgery
patients are not. These regular visitors get to know your facility, so
getting to know them can be an avenue to providing a more satisfying
experience.
At our center, we don't rotate our pain nurses through our surgery
schedule. The nurses who shepherd pain patients through their procedures are the same ones they've met before. And our nurses do get to
know them. They know their names, they remember some of the personal things they've told them, they know whether they like coffee or
tea after their injections. A lot of times, these patients are dealing with
emotional as well as physical pain. A personal touch can be inspiring
to their recovery.
This personal touch does, of course, require a special type of person. There's a dedication and mindset involved in treating pain management patients. In general, they demand a bit more attention than
other patients, and are best served by providers who can adequately
listen and respond to their needs. Efforts toward more comfortable
care aren't going to work if your patients are in the hands of a nurse
who "doesn't want to hear it." Pain management nursing requires the
same sort of drive and passion as surgical nursing. For our service
O C T O B E R 2013 | 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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