Pain at the Pump

[OldSquidNewNurse]

Pain at the Pump: PCA Offers Patients Greater Control but can Mean Trouble for the Inexperienced Physician

PCA Offers Patients Greater Control but can Mean Trouble for Inexperienced

Larry Beresford

Hospitalist. 2007;11(9):36-38.

Introduction
Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), well accepted and widely used to quickly ease post-operative and acute pain, is safe and effective—in skilled hands. But there are complications, caveats, and safety concerns hospitalists should consider to incorporate this tool into their pain management routines and hospital protocols.

Studies show patients prefer the PCA compared with other analgesic routes.[1-2] Less clear is whether it is more effective or leads to lower opioid use.

Some hospitalists use the PCA for their patients with pain—others defer to anesthesiologists, pain services, or palliative care consultants to manage the PCA and its multifaceted dosing requirements.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about the PCA," says Deb Gordon, RN, MS, FAAN, senior clinical nurse specialist and pain consultant at the University of Wisconsin (UW) Medical Center in Madison. "There is a misunderstanding that the PCA is a magic black box for pain relief," which can lead to its overuse. As a general rule of pain management, patients prefer the oral route of analgesic administration, Gordon says, unless that is a problem or rapid titration is needed.

"I don't think [the PCA is] rocket science—it's just a tool to deliver analgesics conveniently," Gordon says. "I think every hospitalist should learn how to use the PCA, but there are always nuances of how to titrate opioids by any route." UW has implemented PCA protocols, which staff can use for ballpark dosing recommendations.

How Hospitalists Use the PCA
The PCA delivers pain medication intravenously via a computerized pump with a button the patient can press when needed—without waiting for busy nurses to answer a call button and then confirm, prepare, and administer an analgesic treatment.

Hospitalists at UW, including Rob Hoffman, MD, often order the PCA. "It's very well-liked by patients, who are not dependent on a busy nurse to get their analgesics administered," Dr. Hoffman says. "The biggest concern, involving overdosing patients who are opioid-naïve, may be somewhat overblown. I haven't experienced problems with my patients being over narcotized, but I start with a low dose and monitor them frequently."

PCA technology can tabulate how much analgesic the patient has received during the previous 24 hours, Dr. Hoffman notes. "You know that's a safe dose for the patient, and you can use it to make the transition to oral medications," he says.

"Most of the patients I have on PCAs are palliative care patients," says Rachelle Bernacki, MD, MS, a hospitalist, palliative care physician, and geriatrician at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center. "I use it somewhat differently for the patients in my hospitalist practice—for example, for those who are experiencing intermittent, unpredictable episodes of abdominal pain. It's also useful for patients with a need to feel in control of their situation. For constant, predictable pain, it's better to use an around-the-clock schedule. I also send certain patients home on PCAs, especially if they are going to hospice care."

Dr. Bernacki notes that some of her patients kiss the PCA button as if it were a long-lost friend, including one she recalls who had a bowel obstruction and had not found relief prior to starting on the PCA. But she also recalls a patient for whom the PCA was not a solution. "He was Cantonese-speaking," she says. "Despite the presence of an interpreter and several attempts at education, he was never able to understand the connection between the PCA button and relief for his pain. We just couldn't cross the cultural and language barriers."

Hospitalists probably underuse the PCA, says Mahmood Shahlapour, MD, hospitalist and palliative care consultant at Chandler Regional Hospital in Chandler, Ariz. "Some hospitalists may feel uncomfortable with it," he says. "I think it's important for hospitalists to try to get more experience and comfort to be able to use it for the right patient and the right setting."

What Is the PCA?
PCA technology as we know it today was pioneered in the early 1970s. Now it's routine for post-surgical pain management. It is used for patients who have trouble taking oral medications or who need rapid response to acute pain crises. Increasingly, it is also used for patients with moderate to severe chronic pain related to cancer or who are being followed by hospice or palliative care services.

PCA refers both to the process of patient self-administration of parenteral analgesics and to the computerized infusion pump that makes this control possible. Recent advances in pain management also include patient-controlled epidural and transdermal analgesia systems—and other new pain modalities continue to be developed.[3] Patients unable to operate the equipment themselves—for example, neonates or infants—may receive nurse-controlled analgesia, but experts say this should only be done within carefully defined parameters.

With the more typical intravenous PCA, the computerized pump allows for a number of variables, including:

An initial bolus or loading dose to bring the pain under immediate control—an important but sometimes overlooked consideration in the successful use of PCAs;


The patient-initiated or demand dose, available to the patient at the press of a button;


The delay interval or lockout, typically between six and 15 minutes, allowing the analgesic to achieve its peak effect before another dose can be administered. The number of unsuccessful demands by patients during lockout periods is important for the physician to know;


A continuous infusion or basal rate to provide continuous pain relief, although this may be contraindicated for opioid-naïve patients starting on PCAs.[4] For those receiving opioids for chronic pain, the basal rate could be their current analgesic dose converted to the intravenous equivalent. Alternatively, the patient could receive this dose in a long-acting oral analgesic, with the PCA used for incidental or breakthrough pain. A basal rate also helps patients sleep, their pain controlled without having to wake up to press for a dose;


A maximum volume of drug to be administered within a defined period of one, four, eight, or 24 hours, calculated to prevent an opioid overdose—regardless of how many times the PCA button gets pushed; and


Monitoring devices such as pulse oximeter or end-tidal carbon dioxide monitor may be part of the PCA system to help warn of emerging respiratory depression.


The fundamental challenge for physicians lies in balancing the loading, basal, and patient-initiated doses with an appropriate maximum to make sure the patient gets adequate pain relief but doesn't overdose. This is a more complex, multifaceted mathematical formula than ordering opioids to be administered two, three, or four times a day.

A basic safeguard of the PCA for preventing overdose is that when the opioid analgesic starts to make the patient drowsy, he or she is likely to stop pressing the button for another dose. However, for this to work, the PCA must be patient-controlled. If a nurse or family member pushes the button on the patient's behalf out of a well-meaning desire to keep pain in check, this raises the risk of overdose.

In the past few years, several national quality and safety organizations have issued alerts about the danger of such patient-controlled analgesia by proxy. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in Huntington Valley, Pa., issued two safety alerts in July 2003 discussing how potentially life-threatening errors can occur with PCAs and offering ways to prevent such errors.

Well-designed hospital PCA protocols will address this problem by including clear instructions to family members not to push the button for the patient, with an explanation of why this can be dangerous. Printed brochures and signs in the patient's room are also helpful.

The Need for Training
"Physicians, as a rule, don't receive adequate training in the PCA," says Jean Youngwerth, MD, hospitalist, palliative care consultant and fellowship associate director at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. "Then you're expected to know how to use it. There clearly is a need for this kind of training in the basics of the PCA, but a brief in-service should be sufficient."

Dan Johnson, MD, regional department chief for palliative care for Kaiser-Permanente in Colorado, says the level of experience with the PCA is highly variable among physicians he works with. "Some know how to use the PCA and actually do it quite well. Many others are not adequately trained," he says. "When I test residents with a few questions, they customarily do very poorly. Some of the answers I see make me nervous."

Dr. Johnson offers a refresher on the PCA for hospitalists in the Denver area who attend an annual palliative care retreat. Those who come regularly seem to retain the information he offers. "If I were in a hospital that had not rolled out PCA standing orders, I'd make sure that there were educational units provided for hospitalists," he says. "I'd also investigate how to develop standing orders for the hospital."

[cougarnurse]

Thanks for the post, Squid. At first I thought it was going to be about gas prices..... lol!

'Cat'