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When Ryan Reynolds, star of the popular Deadpool movies and perennial rom-com leading man, agreed to have his first colonoscopy filmed for public release...
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By: Tricia Meyer
Published: 12/15/2007
To give patients a handy record of their anesthesia, we created a pocket-sized leaflet, dubbed Your Anesthesia Passport, which lists not only the anesthetics that the patient received, but also describes how these drugs are used and information about potential problems. The passport helps patients better understand the procedures they've undergone in the OR and potentially avoid unnecessary complications in future surgeries, whether at our facility or elsewhere. Here's how you can provide your patients with a simple handout that summarizes their anesthetic experiences and effects.
On the Web |
To download a sample anesthesia passport that you can customize for your facility, go to www.outpatientsurgery.net/forms. |
Folded into fours
I'd seen several different patient information tools at meetings and I took the ideas to create something effective for our surgery center. The first draft was a simple form briefly describing the anesthetics that the patient received. After getting suggestions from the rest of the staff, we added more specific descriptions about how these drugs are used and information about potential problems. We went through several revisions and reviews of the literature for patient education materials before printing our current passport on a single sheet of paper that we folded into fours:
A nurse writes in all the specific information and then reviews the pamphlet with the patient or a family member before discharge. At the end of the consultation, the nurse tells the patient to take the pamphlet with him if surgery is needed at another facility. The nurse explains that the passport will be useful if the patient has anesthesia at a different facility that may not have the patient's anesthesia history.
Pleased patients
It took a few revisions to get the passport to where it is now, and it's still a work in progress. We may change some of the text, develop a new illustration or start printing it on cardstock so it will be a more permanent document. Overall, our patients have been receptive to the idea of receiving more information about their procedures and are very satisfied with the passport. The patients who were likely to relocate or move indicated that they felt the passport was more valuable than those who planned to continue their surgical care at our facility.
Anesthesia Notebook |
Continuous peripheral nerve block analgesia is effective in pediatric orthopedic surgery patients, according to an article in the November issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia. Physicians at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who've used CPNB for pain management on almost 500 patients since January 2003, studied the outcomes for 217 children (averaging 13.7 years of age and ranging from 4 to 18 years) who received continuous peripheral nerve blockades between 2003 and 2006 and found this technique was associated with less pain and earlier discharge. Of the 217 children, 108 were discharged home with CPNB. The researchers found that 56 percent of children didn't require any opioids in the first 8 hours post-op, 26 percent didn't require opioids at 24 hours and 21 percent didn't require opioids at 48 hours, according to the study. ????-?"The main advantage is that the patients can leave the hospital sooner,????- ? says Arjunan Ganesh, MBBS, pediatric anesthesiologist and lead author of the study. ????-?"And, you are able to ensure better pain control and to decrease use of opioids and their side effects, such as itching and nausea.????- ? Fourteen percent of children experienced nausea and vomiting and 2.8 percent experienced complications.
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