1 6
O U T P AT 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 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
was 1.7, while the mean number for patients not receiving IV anal-
gesic was 1.9.
•
Does IV analgesic improve post-operative pain scores?
It's hard to say.
Our study found that the mean discharge pain for patients who
received the IV analgesic was 3.1, the same as the mean discharge
pain for those who did not receive the IV analgesic. It was amazing to
us that this result was exactly the same.
•
Does IV analgesic shorten length of stay for the surgical patient?
Yes.
The mean length of post-operative stay for patients who received the
IV analgesic was 152.1 minutes, while the mean length of post-op stay
for those who didn't receive the IV analgesic was 171.1 minutes.
We're passing on making the change for now. The improvements in
use of rescue medications and length of stay correlate with our litera-
ture review, but we need to further investigate the pain control aspect.
Our study really didn't give us a clear answer to whether IV analgesic
improves pain control. Perhaps we can look at medicating the patient
post-operatively with IV analgesic, or review more patients who would
be discharged instead of admitted to the hospital. We could collect
data for a year instead of for 6 months. Also, maybe adding different
surgical procedures could yield more definitive results.
There's also the cost of implementing IV analgesic to consider. We
pay $8.21 per vial of morphine and $2.23 per vial of fentanyl. The IV
analgesic costs $106.34 ($58.45 per vial of IV analgesic, $28.75 for sec-
ondary IV tubing and $19.14 for 50 ml of NS flush.)
— Carrie White, RN, BSN
Ms. White (
carrie.white@centrahealth.com
) is a perioperative nurse at the
Surgery Center at Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg, Va. Melanie Cash,
RN, CAPA, and Suzanne Johnson, RNC, BSN, teamed with Ms. White on this
research project.
SURGEONS'
Lounge
THE
