Postoperative systemic pain management. Interdisciplinary concept with computer-assisted pain score measurement

In the clinical practice 50-85% of cases of acute pain involve postoperative pain. Furthermore postoperative pain affects 30-50% of all surgically treated patients and leads to an increase of postoperative complications. In the period from 01 July 2006 to 31 December 2008 the nursing staff of this clinic recorded the character and severity of pain described by surgically treated patients several times per day with the help of an electronic medical file. The numeric rating scale (NRS) was used for the classification of pain and a total of 139,342 pain records were analyzed. After the implementation of a pain service supervised by the Department of Anesthesiology on the day of surgery and then continued in consideration of in-house pain therapy guidelines by trauma ward physicians who had received prior professional training, a reduction of individual pain perception could be achieved. The aim to achieve NRS values between 0 and 3 could be achieved in the Departments of Septic/Reconstructive Surgery and General Surgery. The continuous collection of pain records and in-house guidelines of pain treatment based on patient pain perception, have helped to reduce postoperative pain.