Has anyone been successful in removing pain scales as a sole indicator for pain management orders?

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Bridgette Smigi...
Bridgette Smigiel, PharmD's picture
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Joined: 07/26/2021 - 10:51
Has anyone been successful in removing pain scales as a sole indicator for pain management orders?

Since patient pain rating is subjective data, the American Society for Pain Management Nursing states that “the practice of prescribing doses of opioid analgesics based solely on pain intensity should be prohibited.” At our facility our nursing team would like to remove this practice by transitioning to allow other patient specific factors to also be assessed for more individualized pain regions. However, removing pain scale verbiage within PRN orders and maintaining compliance for nursing administration has been a challenge for our team. We are seeking to see if other institutions have been able to implement additional subjective finding into pain management policy that can guide nursing to better individualized dosing while still meeting TJC order standards.