and evidence, we
knew that there were
lots of options outside
of opioids that man-
age pain just as well
or better," says
Bethany Sarosiek, RN,
MSN, MPH, CNL, the program's coordinator. "But enhancing patient
care was always the main goal of implementing our ERAS pro-
grams."
"Our initial reason for trying to reduce opioid use was the side
effects such as nausea, constipation and sleepiness," adds Linda
Martin, MD, the lead surgeon for the thoracic program at UVA.
"Then, as we started rolling out our programs, we became more
aware of the epidemic." So, not only are patients benefiting from
reduced side effects, but their communities benefit from less opioids
being in circulation.
Counseling the patient
One of the 5 tenants of ERAS is involving the patient in her own care,
and Ms. Sarosiek would argue it's the most important one. "Multimodal
pain management is also important but it's not the-end-all-be-all," she
says. "You can do everything right — limit opioids and use non-opioid
pain medications — and all the patient will want to do after surgery is
sit in bed, because that's what they think they are supposed to do.
Educating patients makes them motivated to get out of bed earlier,
which helps them recover faster. That's our goal with pre-operative
patient education — to set the right expectations ahead of time."
The key that makes their pre-op education so successful is the hand-
book that goes home with each patient. The handbook is specific to
J U N E 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 1 9
The UVA Health System's ERAS program is available at uvaeras.com.
