It hurts to be sick or injured. But as of next week, hospitals will have a responsibility to treat the pain as well as the illness or injury. New accreditation standards are requiring hospitals and nursing homes to measure every patient's pain regularly from the time they check in and to provide proper pain relief. Hospitals and nursing homes that fail to meet the requirement risk losing their federal accreditation. Patients must at least be asked to rate their pain.
Small children use pictures with faces, ranging from smiling to crying, to rate their pain.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations adopted the standards more than a year ago but gave facilities until January 2001 to comply. Many of North Dakota's smaller, rural hospitals aren't accredited by the commission so they aren't affected by the new standards, although some have adopted the guidelines anyway. North Dakota's nursing homes fall under the review of the State Health Department rather than the federal accreditation commission, but they are beginning to focus more on pain management, also, said Tim Burchill, administrator at ManorCare Health Services in Minot. It figures into everything. The North Dakota Health Care Review is preparing a study that will look into the effectiveness of pain management programs at a number of nursing homes in the state.