Documentation of pain assessment after pain management interventions in the NICU
Timely assessment of pain in neonates continues to be difficult for staff due to high acuity, workload and staffing shortages.
Neonates may experience more than 300 painful procedures and surgeries throughout their hospitalization. A proactive assessment of pain allows the medical team to detect pain early and adequately manage it. At Children’s National, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) team wants to minimize the impact of pain, particularly in preterm nonverbal infants as it has short- and long-term adverse neurodevelopment effects. Smitha Israel, BSN, RN, clinical program coordinator in the Children’s National neonatology department, created a team to increase compliance in pain reassessments and documentation in the NICU using technology to speed up reporting. That compliance increased from 50% to 75% and has been sustained for over two years.
What’s been the hold-up in the field?
Timely assessment of pain in neonates continues to be difficult for staff due to high acuity, workload and staffing shortages. To combat this, Israel’s group partnered with experts from the triggers team to speed up the reporting of pain assessments and to standardize the assessments when administering a pharmacological intervention.
How will this work benefit patients?
This work improves patient care in the NICU by improving pain management and reducing those possible adverse effects in a neonate’s development that pain may contribute to.
How is this work unique?
This study at Children’s National is the first study of pain assessment in the NICU that has shown improvement beyond published rates and has been sustained for six months after implementation.
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