To educate patients about the need to communicate about their unrelieved pain. To enhance patient comfort and satisfaction. To reduce postoperative complications and, in some cases, shorten stays after surgical procedures. These patients continue to feel moderate to severe pain. Aggressive prevention of pain is better than treatment because, once established, pain is more difficult to suppress.
Patients have a right to treatment that includes prevention of or adequate relief from pain.
Physicians need to develop pain control plans before surgery and inform the patient what to expect in terms of pain during and after surgery. Fears of postsurgical addiction to opioids are generally groundless. Patient-controlled medication via infusion pumps is safe. Return to Acute Pain Management Guideline Contents Dissemination Following release of the acute pain guideline at a press conference in Washington, D.C., news of the guideline was carried nationwide by CBS, NBC, CNN, and Univision, a Spanish-language network serving the United States and Latin America. Radio also carried the news.