D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 6 5
feel improvements in technology and techniques will someday com-
pletely eliminate opioids from surgery and discharge prescriptions.
We all know what's happening with the unintentional abuse of
painkillers when patients cross the line from post-op pain control to
addiction."
The same nurses who used to routinely pump patients full of pain
meds are now thrilled that Dr. Haas has championed opioid-sparing
surgery. They can tell which patients have traveled along the new pain
control pathway without even checking their charts. "All you have to
do is walk into the PACU and look around," says Dr. Rosas.
OSM
doses in order to achieve the same desired effect," he says.
Patients with history of drug abuse, who are on opioids for a
chronic painful condition and who are depressed are at the highest
risk of abusing opioids prescribed after surgery, says Dr. Gan. He
also points out that relatives or friends with abuse history who live
in the same house as recovering patients might be unable to resist
pain medications left in the medicine cabinet.
"When the Joint Commission introduced pain as the 5
th
vital
sign, physicians increased the number of prescriptions they wrote
for opioids," says Dr. Gan. "The present-day epidemic may be in
part the consequence of that."
Going forward, he says, physicians need to be more aware of
the opioid-abuse problem and change their prescribing habits by
limiting the duration of opioid prescriptions to a shorter period —
5 to 7 days, for example — and including the option of refill as
needed.
— Daniel Cook
