Pittsburgh-based UPMC Shadyside Hospital launched an opioid-free pathway for patients undergoing surgery or treatment who want alternative options for pain management, CBS News reported July 22.
The program allows patients to pick routes for managing surgical and post-op pain, including regional anesthesia, nerve blocks, non-opioid IV medications, aromatherapy, hypnosis and biomedical devices.
The program launched in May and has already enrolled 39 patients. Patients wear special bracelets and charts have stickers to ensure staff understand the pain management plan. Patients can opt out at any time, but most who enroll have either family members with an opioid addiction or have had an addiction themselves.
"We had been seeing a lot of patients coming into the hospital for surgery asking specifically not to use opioids for their pain management," Shiv Goel, MD, chief of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at UPMC Shadyside, told CBS. "And so far, there was never any defined pathway that existed that would ensure that a patient who's making such a request gets that option and that request is honored. For the first time, this gives the power to the patients to choose the type of pain medications they want to take for managing their pain."
This is the first program of its kind in the area and possibly the nation, according to the report.