THE PATIENT EMPOWERMENT CARD FOR ANALGESIA: Empowering the patient's journey through the Emergency Department as an improvement project on analgesia standards.
INTRODUCTION: Pain and analgesia management is one of the most common problems presenting to the Emergency department every day. Several scales are used to assess it, but no consensus in which one to use during initial assessment of the patient in pain. This report is a three-phase improvement project on analgesia standards conducted in one of the midlands hospitals and based on the current practice from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. In this report, we include the early phases, and discuss the impact of future development.
METHODS: After a brainstorming session to define the aims and objectives of the present Quality Improvement Project (QIP), a pilot audit was conducted showing difficulties to achieve standards in the department. As a result of this audit, we implemented a week trial using a novel intervention called “The analgesia Card” to empower the patient to take active part of the analgesia management.
RESULTS: Data was re-audit after the trial showing important improvement of the analgesia standards proposed by the College, and implementation of the Analgesia Card in the Emergency Department was adopted as a current practice for management. The present QIP will serve as a pillar to progress to phase four to develop a broader intervention called “PATIENT PASSPORT”, and to raise awareness about patient empowerment in the pain treatment inside the Emergency department as well as contribute in further investigation and publication in this undeveloped topic.
