Rhode Island Code of Regulations › Title 216 - Department of health › Chapter 20 - Community Health › Subchapter 15 - Information for Health Care Professionals › Part 2 - Pain Assessment (216-RICR-20-15-2) › Section 216-RICR-20-15-2.2 - Definitions

Current through June 14, 2024
A. Wherever used in this Part, the following
				  terms shall be construed as follows:
1. "The
				  Act" means R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 5-37.6.
2. "Assessment of pain" means the act of
				  assessing an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a
				  consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder.
3. "Department" means the Rhode Island
				  Department of Health.
4. "Director"
				  means the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health.
5. "Faces rating scale" means a pain
				  intensity tool that contains graphical representations of faces in various
				  stages of pain intensity, with a happy face representing no pain and a tearful
				  face representing the worst possible pain.
6. "Health care facility", pursuant to R.I.
				  Gen. Laws Chapter 23-17, means any institutional health service provider,
				  facility or institution, place, building, agency, or portion thereof, whether a
				  partnership or corporation, whether public or private, whether organized for
				  profit or not, used, operated, or engaged in providing health care services,
				  including but not limited to hospitals; nursing facilities; home nursing care
				  provider (which shall include skilled nursing services and may also include
				  activities allowed as a home care provider, or as a nursing service agency);
				  home care provider (which may include services such as personal care or
				  homemaker services or as a nursing service agency); nursing service agency;
				  rehabilitation centers; kidney disease treatment centers; health maintenance
				  organizations; free-standing emergency care facilities, and facilities
				  providing surgical treatment to patients not requiring hospitalization
				  (surgi-centers); hospice care, and physician ambulatory surgery
				  centers/podiatry ambulatory surgery centers. The term "health care facility"
				  also includes organized ambulatory care facilities which are not part of a
				  hospital but which are organized and operated to provide health care services
				  to outpatients such as central services facilities serving more than one health
				  care facility or health care provider, treatment centers, diagnostic centers,
				  rehabilitation centers, outpatient clinics, infirmaries and health centers,
				  school-based health centers and neighborhood health centers; providing,
				  however, that the term "health care facility" shall not apply to organized
				  ambulatory care facilities owned and operated by professional service
				  corporations as defined in R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 7-5.1 (the "Professional
				  Service Corporation Law"), or to a private practitioner's (physician, dentist,
				  or other health care provider) office or group of the practitioners' offices
				  (whether owned and/or operated by an individual practitioner, alone or as a
				  member of a partnership, professional service corporation, organization, or
				  association). Individual categories of health care facilities shall be defined
				  in rules and regulations promulgated by the licensing agency with the advice of
				  the Health Services Council. Rules and regulations concerning hospice care
				  shall be promulgated with regard to the "Standards of Practice for Hospice
				  Programs", promulgated by the National Hospice and Palliative Care
				  Organization. Any provider of hospice care who provides such hospice care
				  without charge shall be exempt from the licensing provisions of R.I. Gen. Laws
				  Chapter 23-17, but shall meet the "Standards of Practice for Hospice Programs."
				  Facilities licensed by the Department of Behavioral Health, Developmental
				  Disabilities and Hospitals, and the Department of Human Services, and clinical
				  laboratories licensed in accordance with R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 23-16.2, as
				  well as Christian Science institutions (also known as Christian Science Nursing
				  Facilities) listed and certified by the Commission for Accreditation of
				  Christian Science Nursing Organizations/Facilities, Inc. shall not be
				  considered health care facilities for purposes of R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter
				  23-17.
7. "Health care provider"
				  means any person licensed by this state to provide or lawfully providing health
				  care services, including, but not limited to, a physician, dentist,
				  optometrist, nurse, podiatrist, physical therapist, nurse practitioner or
				  physician assistant.
8. "Numeric
				  rating scale" means a pain intensity tool that quantifies a patient's
				  subjective pain for the health care provider. It may be visually or verbally
				  administered and usually contains numbers 0--5 or 0--10 along a horizontal or
				  vertical line, with 0 meaning "no pain" and 5 or 10 representing the worst pain
				  imaginable.
9. "Pain" means an
				  unpleasant sensation that can range from mild, localized discomfort to agony.
				  Pain has both physical and emotional components. The physical part of pain
				  results from nerve stimulation. Pain may be contained to a discrete area, as in
				  an injury, or it can be more diffuse, as in disorders like fibromyalgia. Pain
				  is mediated by specific nerve fibers that carry the pain impulses to the brain
				  where their conscious appreciation may be modified by many factors.
10. "Pain" means a usually localized physical
				  suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also a
				  basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, characterized by physical
				  discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching) and typically leading to evasive
				  action; pain also may include mental or emotional distress or
				  suffering.
11. "Pain intensity
				  tool" means a tool for the evaluation of a patient's subjective pain which is a
				  component of pain assessment. Common pain intensity tools include: faces rating
				  scales, visual analog scales, descriptive verbal response to pain, behavior
				  observation scale, and numeric rating scales.
12. "Person" means any individual, trust or
				  estate, partnership, limited liability corporation, corporation (including
				  associations, joint stock companies, and insurance companies), state, or
				  political subdivision or instrumentality of a state.
13. "Regular basis" means a procedure done on
				  a customary, usual, normal, orderly, even, or symmetrical schedule.
14. "Visual analog scale" means a horizontal
				  or vertical representation of pain, with "no pain" anchored at one end of the
				  scale and "worst possible pain" anchored at the other end. The patient is asked
				  to mark where the pain intensity falls along the continuum.