7/26/2014 April Pain Committee Updates - Davis, Aurora

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April Pain Committee Updates
Rockstars,
We had a VERY productive day at the Pain Champions of Change Committee Meeting, and I wanted to
pass some information along to all of you.
1) The new Comfort-Function Goal terminology is officially going to roll out in EPIC on April 22nd. To
recap, "pain goal" is going away and is being replaced by "comfort-function goal". The basic premise is
that we need to work with our patients to develop a comfort goal that easily allows them to perform
necessary functions, like walking, deep breathing, showering, etc. There's a tip sheet attached for your
further edification, as well as part of a really useful article that gives some scripting on how to present a
comfort function goal to your patients.
In addition to the new comfort-function goal, there's also a change coming under the row called "response
to relief measures". This is where you can chart things like "reports improvement" or "reports no
improvement". There's now a new option: "Pain level acceptable per patient". This is a great option
when your patient declines to rate their pain, but states something like "I'm okay now" or "My pain is
fine."
2) The Pain Education Tool I developed will be rolling out on May 1st. I'll be presenting the tool to you
at the upcoming Chemo/BMT classes, but just as a preview, we'll be putting this tool into your patient's
admission packets to give you an additional resource for teaching your patients about pain, alternative
therapies, and the comfort-function goal.
3) The Pain Committee is working on several other interventions to help improve our hospital-wide
pain scores, including scripting for talking to patients about pain, comfort carts (with some extra
interventions beyond what we normally use), and special small white boards that can be handed to
patients and updated together, then velcroed to the wall and referred to throughout the day.
4) We have a new unit representative on the committee: Rhonda Moberg. Rhonda attended her first
committee meeting today. Welcome, Rhonda!
As always, let us know if you have any questions or if we can do anything to help you.
Aurora, Katie D, and Rhonda
Your Pain Champions
Davis, Aurora
Wed 4/16/2014 8:44 PM
To:UCH-AIP 11th Onc RN <UCH-AIP_11th_Onc_RN@uchealth.org>;
2 attachments
Pain Assessment Change for April 22 2014_140414.pdf; Setting a Comfort Function Goal.pdf;
7/26/2014 April Pain Committee Updates - Davis, Aurora
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Aurora Davis, RN, BA, BSN, OCN
Relief Charge Nurse
Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit
University of Colorado Hospital
Aurora.Davis@uchealth.org