Pharmacist participation on an interdisciplinary team to improve pain scores and patient satisfaction at a community hospital

Purpose: The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is a standardized, publicly reported survey of recently discharged patients’ perspectives of their hospital care, including pain management. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, includes HCAHPS as a measure to calculate hospital value-based incentive payments. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of an interdisciplinary team, which includes a pharmacist, to improve pain management and patient satisfaction scores.

Methods: Beginning September 2011, interdisciplinary teams consisting of the unit clinical pharmacist and the unit nurse manager conducted daily pain rounds on seven patient care areas of a 390-bed community, teaching hospital. Rounds were performed Monday through Friday on an average of eight patients per patient care area. Targeted patients were newly admitted patients, however previously seen patients were revisited at the discretion of the team. Recommendations were communicated to the patient’s physician for approval and implementation.

Results: During May 2012, pharmacists participated in 107 of 154 possible instances of pain rounds. Pharmacists documented 109 interventions as a result of pain rounds. Types of interventions included patient education on pain medications, adjusting pain medication doses or frequencies, and resuming chronic patient medications as per the home regimen. HCAHPS patient satisfaction scores related to pain management increased during the intervention period, with three patient care areas achieving goal results on at least 90% of surveys in April.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that an interdisciplinary team, including a pharmacist, performing daily pain rounds on newly hospitalized patients, may help improve pain management and HCAHPS patient satisfaction scores.