Tag Archives: anesthesiology

Anesthesiology, Healthcare, Outcomes Research, Pain Medicine, Patient Safety, Regional Anesthesiology, Research

Why We Should Worry about Drug Shortages in Regional Anesthesia

The crisis of prescription opioid overuse and abuse has affected countries around the world, and anesthesiologists are well-positioned to make positive changes (1).  Even minor outpatient surgical procedures, and their associated anesthesia and analgesia techniques, can lead to long-term opioid use (2,3).  Patients who present for surgery with an active opioid prescription are very likely to still be on opioids after a year (4).

Anesthesiologists have been working to set up regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine programs with careful coordination of inpatient and outpatient pain management to improve patient outcomes.  Regional anesthesia, especially with continuous peripheral nerve block (CPNB) techniques, has been shown repeatedly to reduce patients’ need for opioid analgesia (5).

Today, the crisis of drug shortages threatens to reverse many advances in acute pain management.

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Today, the crisis of drug shortages threatens to reverse the many advances in perioperative pain control that have been achieved.  Local anesthetics or “numbing medications” represent a class of drugs that is our strongest weapon against opioids.  These drugs (e.g., bupivacaine, lidocaine, ropivacaine) are currently in shortage.  Targeted injections of local anesthetic in the form of regional anesthesia eliminate sensation at the site of surgery and can obviate the need for injectable opioids (e.g., fentanyl, hydromorphone, morphine) which also happen to be in short supply.  Local anesthetics are also the critical ingredient in providing epidural pain relief and spinal anesthesia for childbirth.  Without them, new moms will miss the first moments of their babies’ lives.

The following are potential ramifications of the current drug shortages affecting anesthesia and pain management on patient care:

Decreased Quality of Acute Pain Management

Regional anesthesia techniques, which include spinal, epidural, and peripheral nerve blocks, offer patients many potential advantages in the perioperative and peripartum period.  Human studies have demonstrated the following benefits: decreased pain, nausea and vomiting, and time spent in the recovery room (6,7).  Long-acting local anesthetics (e.g., bupivacaine, levobupivacaine, and ropivacaine) generally provide analgesia of similar duration for 24 hours or less (8-11).  These clinical effects of nerve blocks typically last long enough for patients to meet discharge eligibility from recovery and avoid unnecessary hospitalization for pain control (12).  CPNB techniques (also known as perineural catheters) permit delivery of local anesthetic solutions to the site of a peripheral nerve on an ongoing basis (13).  Portable infusion devices can deliver a solution of plain local anesthetic for days after surgery, often with the ability to titrate the dose up and down or even stop the infusion temporarily when patients feel too numb (14,15).  In a meta-analysis comparing CPNB to single-injection peripheral nerve blocks in humans, CPNB results in lower patient-reported worst pain scores and pain scores at rest on postoperative day (POD) 0, 1, and 2 (16).  Patients who receive CPNB also experience less nausea, consume less opioids, sleep better, and are more satisfied with pain management (16).  By using local anesthetic medication to interrupt nerve transmission along peripheral nerves, patients continue to experience decreased sensation as long as the infusion is running.  A shortage of local anesthetic medications makes it impossible for anesthesiologists to provide this potent form of opioid-sparing pain control for all surgical patients.  This also means that local anesthetics cannot be administered by surgeons as wound infiltration to help patients with incisional pain, and epidural analgesia for laboring women may not be universally available.

Increased Incidence of Postoperative Complications

Based on the study by Memtsoudis and colleagues, overall 30-day mortality for total knee arthroplasty patients is lower for patients who receive regional anesthesia, either neuraxial and combined neuraxial-general anesthesia, compared to general anesthesia alone (17).  In most categories, the rates of occurrence of in-hospital complications (e.g. all-cause infections, pulmonary, cardiovascular, acute renal failure) are also lower for the neuraxial and combined neuraxial-general anesthesia groups vs. the general anesthesia only group, and transfusion requirements are lowest for neuraxial anesthesia patients compared to all other groups (17).  The inability to offer regional anesthesia (e.g., spinal or epidural) to all patients due to lack of local anesthetics therefore represents a threat to patient safety.

Increased Risk of Persistent Postsurgical Pain

Chronic pain may develop after many common operations including breast surgery, cesarean delivery, hernia repair, thoracic surgery, and amputation and is associated with severe acute pain in the postoperative period (18).  A Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis reviewed published studies on this subject, and the results favor epidural analgesia for prevention of persistent postsurgical pain (PPSP) after thoracotomy and favor paravertebral block for prevention of PPSP after breast cancer surgery at 6 months (19).  Only regional blockade with local anesthetics can block patients’ sensation during and after surgery.  Without local anesthetics for nerve blocks, spinals, and epidurals, patients will experience greater than expected acute pain, require additional opioid treatment, and potentially be at higher risk of developing chronic pain.

Increased Health Care Costs

Approximately 31% of costs related to inpatient perioperative care is attributable to the ward admission (20).  Anesthesiologists as perioperative physicians have an opportunity to influence the cost of surgical care by decreasing hospital length of stay through effective pain management and by developing coordinated multi-disciplinary clinical pathways (21,22).  Regional anesthesia and analgesia can improve outcomes through integration into clinical pathways that involve a multipronged approach to streamlining surgical care (23,24).  Inadequate pain control can delay rehabilitation, prolong hospital admissions, increase the rate of readmissions (25), and increase the costs of hospitalization for surgical patients.

In summary, regional anesthesia and analgesia has been shown in multiple studies to improve outcomes for obstetric and surgical patients.  The current shortage of local anesthetics and other analgesic medications negatively affects quality of care and pain management and is a threat to patient safety.

References

  1. Alam A, Juurlink DN. The prescription opioid epidemic: an overview for anesthesiologists. Can J Anaesth 2016;63:61-8.
  2. Sun EC, Darnall BD, Baker LC, Mackey S. Incidence of and Risk Factors for Chronic Opioid Use Among Opioid-Naive Patients in the Postoperative Period. JAMA internal medicine 2016;176:1286-93.
  3. Rozet I, Nishio I, Robbertze R, Rotter D, Chansky H, Hernandez AV. Prolonged opioid use after knee arthroscopy in military veterans. Anesth Analg 2014;119:454-9.
  4. Mudumbai SC, Oliva EM, Lewis ET, Trafton J, Posner D, Mariano ER, Stafford RS, Wagner T, Clark JD. Time-to-Cessation of Postoperative Opioids: A Population-Level Analysis of the Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Pain Med 2016;17:1732-43.
  5. Richman JM, Liu SS, Courpas G, Wong R, Rowlingson AJ, McGready J, Cohen SR, Wu CL. Does continuous peripheral nerve block provide superior pain control to opioids? A meta-analysis. Anesth Analg 2006;102:248-57.
  6. Liu SS, Strodtbeck WM, Richman JM, Wu CL. A comparison of regional versus general anesthesia for ambulatory anesthesia: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Anesth Analg 2005;101:1634-42.
  7. McCartney CJ, Brull R, Chan VW, Katz J, Abbas S, Graham B, Nova H, Rawson R, Anastakis DJ, von Schroeder H. Early but no long-term benefit of regional compared with general anesthesia for ambulatory hand surgery. Anesthesiology 2004;101:461-7.
  8. Casati A, Borghi B, Fanelli G, Cerchierini E, Santorsola R, Sassoli V, Grispigni C, Torri G. A double-blinded, randomized comparison of either 0.5% levobupivacaine or 0.5% ropivacaine for sciatic nerve block. Anesth Analg 2002;94:987-90, table of contents.
  9. Hickey R, Hoffman J, Ramamurthy S. A comparison of ropivacaine 0.5% and bupivacaine 0.5% for brachial plexus block. Anesthesiology 1991;74:639-42.
  10. Klein SM, Greengrass RA, Steele SM, D’Ercole FJ, Speer KP, Gleason DH, DeLong ER, Warner DS. A comparison of 0.5% bupivacaine, 0.5% ropivacaine, and 0.75% ropivacaine for interscalene brachial plexus block. Anesth Analg 1998;87:1316-9.
  11. Fanelli G, Casati A, Beccaria P, Aldegheri G, Berti M, Tarantino F, Torri G. A double-blind comparison of ropivacaine, bupivacaine, and mepivacaine during sciatic and femoral nerve blockade. Anesth Analg 1998;87:597-600.
  12. Williams BA, Kentor ML, Vogt MT, Williams JP, Chelly JE, Valalik S, Harner CD, Fu FH. Femoral-sciatic nerve blocks for complex outpatient knee surgery are associated with less postoperative pain before same-day discharge: a review of 1,200 consecutive cases from the period 1996-1999. Anesthesiology 2003;98:1206-13.
  13. Ilfeld BM. Continuous peripheral nerve blocks: a review of the published evidence. Anesth Analg 2011;113:904-25.
  14. Ilfeld BM. Continuous peripheral nerve blocks in the hospital and at home. Anesthesiol Clin 2011;29:193-211.
  15. Ilfeld BM, Enneking FK. Continuous peripheral nerve blocks at home: a review. Anesth Analg 2005;100:1822-33.
  16. Bingham AE, Fu R, Horn JL, Abrahams MS. Continuous peripheral nerve block compared with single-injection peripheral nerve block: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2012;37:583-94.
  17. Memtsoudis SG, Sun X, Chiu YL, Stundner O, Liu SS, Banerjee S, Mazumdar M, Sharrock NE. Perioperative comparative effectiveness of anesthetic technique in orthopedic patients. Anesthesiology 2013;118:1046-58.
  18. Kehlet H, Jensen TS, Woolf CJ. Persistent postsurgical pain: risk factors and prevention. Lancet 2006;367:1618-25.
  19. Andreae MH, Andreae DA. Regional anaesthesia to prevent chronic pain after surgery: a Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Anaesth 2013;111:711-20.
  20. Macario A, Vitez TS, Dunn B, McDonald T. Where are the costs in perioperative care? Analysis of hospital costs and charges for inpatient surgical care. Anesthesiology 1995;83:1138-44.
  21. Ilfeld BM, Mariano ER, Williams BA, Woodard JN, Macario A. Hospitalization costs of total knee arthroplasty with a continuous femoral nerve block provided only in the hospital versus on an ambulatory basis: a retrospective, case-control, cost-minimization analysis. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2007;32:46-54.
  22. Jakobsen DH, Sonne E, Andreasen J, Kehlet H. Convalescence after colonic surgery with fast-track vs conventional care. Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland 2006;8:683-7.
  23. Macario A, Horne M, Goodman S, Vitez T, Dexter F, Heinen R, Brown B. The effect of a perioperative clinical pathway for knee replacement surgery on hospital costs. Anesth Analg 1998;86:978-84.
  24. Hebl JR, Kopp SL, Ali MH, Horlocker TT, Dilger JA, Lennon RL, Williams BA, Hanssen AD, Pagnano MW. A comprehensive anesthesia protocol that emphasizes peripheral nerve blockade for total knee and total hip arthroplasty. J Bone Joint Surg Am 2005;87 Suppl 2:63-70.
  25. Hernandez-Boussard T, Graham LA, Desai K, Wahl TS, Aucoin E, Richman JS, Morris MS, Itani KM, Telford GL, Hawn MT. The Fifth Vital Sign: Postoperative Pain Predicts 30-day Readmissions and Subsequent Emergency Department Visits. Ann Surg 2017;266:516-24.

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Why I Still Love Being an Anesthesiologist

When I first wrote “What I Love about Being an Anesthesiologist” for KevinMD in 2014, it was shared over 14,000 times!

Nearly 4 years later, I still love what I do – in fact, I think I love it even more now! My wife and I were at a party recently attended by healthcare and non-healthcare people. Of course, I was asked the inevitable questions, “What do you do?” and “What is it like?”

Here is how I answered:

Being a physician anesthesiologist is the honor of a lifetime, and it comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility. My patients rely on me to be their personal physician during surgery.  Under general anesthesia, they need me to be their voice because they can’t speak. They need me to act because they cannot protect themselves.

  • I have to understand my patients’ medical conditions.
  • I adapt my anesthetic plans to their needs.
  • I anticipate challenges that may take place during an operation.
  • I recognize problems early and prevent them when possible.
  • I react quickly and appropriately to make sure my patients make it through surgery safely with the best possible outcomes.

In the operating room, I cannot write an order and expect someone else to carry it out. I have to know how everything in my environment works, from top to bottom, so I can take the best care of my patients. I set up my own anesthetic equipment and supplies in preparation for surgery. I prepare all of the medications that I will personally administer to my patients.

I will admit that a big reason I chose this specialty was the people in it. Now my fellow physician anesthesiologists are my colleagues and mentors who continually challenge and inspire me.

I have the best job in the world:  helping patients through the stressful experience of surgery, relieving pain, and making new discoveries through research that will hopefully benefit future patients.

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Partnering with Patients for Patients

As an anesthesiologist, I am a physician who cares for patients when they are most vulnerable.  Under anesthesia, no one is able to call for help.  Every day patients have surgery in operating rooms all over the world, and it is the job of the physician anesthesiologist to watch over them, monitor their bodies’ responses to stress, breathe for them, provide them with pain relief, and fight for them when unexpected crises occur.  It is my job to calm the fears of my patients and families, listen to their requests, manage their expectations, and develop a plan that will provide them with the best outcome after surgery.

“It is my job to calm the fears of my patients and families, listen to their requests, manage their expectations, and develop a plan that will provide them with the best outcome after surgery.”

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My belief in this connection between physicians, patients, and families as an anesthesiologist stretches into my administrative roles as well.  As Chief of the Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care Service and Associate Chief of Staff for Inpatient Surgical Services at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS), I am grateful for the opportunity to work with an incredible team of physicians, respiratory therapists, surgeons, advanced practice providers, technicians, and administrative staff members who are focused on our mission to provide the highest quality Veteran-centered care by leading, educating, and innovating in anesthesiology and perioperative medicine.

In order to accomplish this mission, we need the best information available to guide our decisions and a diversity of perspectives to enhance our ability to train new clinicians and explore relevant research questions.  We have been fortunate to partner with our friends and colleagues in the Veteran and Family Advisory Council (VFAC) on a number of exciting projects.  First, our Service manages the simulation center at VAPAHCS and is responsible for coordinating simulation-based training for all clinicians.  Members of VFAC have been directly involved in simulation activities, even taking on active roles as the patient or family member in standardized training scenarios, to help us educate clinicians from various disciplines and all training levels.  Debriefing after these simulation exercises gives our clinical trainees and practicing clinicians the unique perspective of real patients and family members which is essential to their professional development as modern medicine continues to progress towards a model of patient-centered care.

Once a year, our Service organizes a faculty development retreat during which we reassess our mission, vision, strategic priorities, and tactics and work on one or two big ideas.  Two years ago in 2015, we invited our VFAC partners to join us at our annual retreat to brainstorm improvement ideas related to patient-centered care in the perioperative environment, intensive care unit, and pain management.  The general theme of the retreat addressed public perception and professional reputation of anesthesiologists and the specialty of anesthesiology.  Having members of VFAC present at the retreat to share their knowledge, opinions, and questions has inspired a few subsequent improvement activities and other projects to enhance the range of services that we provide to our patients and their families.

Finally, working together with VFAC, and knowing members personally, has allowed our clinical Service to solicit feedback on a regular basis.  Not all hospitals enjoy the level of access to a community of engaged patients and families like we do at VAPAHCS.  When we revised our preoperative education materials for patients, we went to VFAC for input.  When we were critically reviewing our website to update our online patient educational materials on anesthesia and perioperative care, we presented at the VFAC meeting to get the members’ feedback and suggestions.  With their help, we have been able to improve the accessibility and readability of our online content and provide our patients and their families with useful information that can help prepare them for surgery.

We are very grateful to VFAC for its priceless contributions to our healthcare system, our patients, and our Service.  We look forward to continued collaboration on future projects!

This blog has also appeared as a featured story on the VA Palo Alto Health Care System website.

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A New Era for Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine

It has finally happened–the inaugural class of ACGME-accredited Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine (RAAPM) fellowships has been announced, marking the beginning of a new era.

Congratulations to the following 9 programs that now are the first accredited fellowship programs representing this subspecialty in the United States:

  1. Stanford University
  2. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
  3. University of California, San Francisco
  4. Massachusetts General Hospital
  5. Brigham and Women’s Hospital
  6. Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine
  7. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai/St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital
  8. Duke University Hospital
  9. Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Accreditation is immediate and retroactive to the current 2016-17 academic year. This announcement represents a tremendous achievement in anesthesiology training and medical education in general.  Nearly 4 years ago, at our spring RAAPM fellowship directors meeting in 2013, I was appointed to lead the task force that would eventually make contact with the ACGME to request consideration for accreditation of our subspecialty fellowship programs. After submitting the 161-page letter to ACGME, we waited nearly a year to receive a response, and it was positive. The next 2 years were spent drafting the program requirements that would eventually be used as the basis for fellowship design and evaluation. This was an iterative process with multiple revisions based on solicited feedback and public commentary.

When the application period opened for the first time ever in October 2016, programs interested in applying had less than 2 months to prepare their program information forms and other materials, have them reviewed and approved by their local graduate medical education offices, and submit to ACGME in time for the 2017 spring review.

These 9 accredited programs have embarked on a brave new path, but it will not be an easy one. Their programs will be reviewed periodically to evaluate adherence to the program requirements and the quality of fellowship training, and deficiencies identified will need to be resolved or face loss of accreditation. However, their commitment to maintaining accreditation represents, in my opinion, a commitment to their fellows that they will provide a training experience that can be held as a benchmark for all programs.

We need our fellowship training programs to develop leaders in regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine who can catalyze changes in healthcare that will improve patient outcomes and experience. Today, we have taken a huge step forward.

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Changing Clinical Practice Doesn’t Have to Take So Long

Guest post by Seshadri Mudumbai, MD, MS.  Dr. Mudumbai is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also a health services researcher and physician anesthesiologist at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

time-for-changeChanging physician behavior is rarely easy, and studies show that it can take an average of 17 years before research evidence becomes widely adopted in clinical practice. One study published in JAMA has identified 7 categories of change barriers:

  1. Lack of awareness (don’t know guidelines exist)
  2. Lack of familiarity (know guidelines exist but don’t know the details)
  3. Lack of agreement (don’t agree with recommendations)
  4. Lack of self-efficacy (don’t think they can do it)
  5. Lack of outcome expectancy (don’t think it will work)
  6. Inertia (don’t want to change)
  7. External barriers (want to change but blocked by system factors)

Why Change?

According to the Institute of Medicine’s Crossing the Quality Chasm: a New Health System for the 21st Century:  “Patients should receive care based on the best available scientific knowledge. Care should not vary illogically from clinician to clinician or from place to place.”  Our group has focused our efforts on implementing updated evidence-based medicine initiatives for surgical patients with a special emphasis on the total knee replacement population.  Knee replacement is already one of the most common types of surgery in the United States (over 700,000 procedures per year).  Given an aging population, the volume of knee replacement surgeries is expected to increase to over 3 million by the year 2030.

We now have sufficient evidence to support “neuraxial anesthesia” (such as a spinal or epidural) as the preferred intraoperative anesthetic technique for knee replacement patients.  With neuraxial anesthesia, an injection in the back temporarily numbs the legs and allows for painless surgery of the knee.  Several studies have now shown better outcomes and fewer complications after knee replacement surgery with neuraxial anesthesia when compared with general anesthesia.  Despite these known benefits, a large study evaluating data from approximately 200,000 knee replacement patients across the United States reveals that use of neuraxial anesthesia occurs in less than 30% of cases.  At our facility prior to changing our practice, we noted a 13% rate of neuraxial anesthesia utilization.  In the face of growing evidence, we chose to change our practice, and the results of these efforts are reported in our recently published article.

How Did We Start?

An important tool used to coordinate the perioperative care of knee replacement patients has long been the clinical pathway.  A clinical pathway is a detailed care plan for the period before, during, and after surgery that covers multiple disciplines:  surgery, anesthesiology and pain management, nursing, physical and occupational therapy, and sometimes more.   The concept of the clinical pathway should be dynamic and not static.  This requires a process to ensure clinical pathways are periodically updated and someone to take a leadership role in managing the process.

At our institution, we established a coordinated care model known as the Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH).  The PSH provides the overall structure and coordination for perioperative care, and multiple clinical pathways exist within this structure.  With a PSH, physician anesthesiologists are charged with providing leadership and oversight of specific clinical pathways, collecting and reviewing data, engaging frontline healthcare staff and managers across disciplines, and suggesting changes or updates to clinical pathways as new evidence emerges.

Within our PSH model, we invested in a 5 month process to change our preferred anesthetic technique from general anesthesia to neuraxial anesthesia within the clinical pathway for knee replacement patients.  This process involved many steps and followed the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research:

  1. Literature review and interdepartmental presentation
  2. Development of a work document
  3. Training of staff
  4. Prospective collection of data with feedback to staff.

After one year, the overall percentage of knee replacement patients receiving neuraxial anesthesia increased to 63% from 13%, and a statistically-significant increase in neuraxial anesthesia use took place within one month of the updated clinical pathway rollout.

How Do We Keep It Going?

Neuraxial anesthesia continues to be the predominant anesthetic technique that our knee replacement patients receive today.  We attribute the ongoing success of this change to multidisciplinary collaboration, physician leadership in the form of a departmental champion, peer support and feedback, frequent open communication, and engagement and support from facility leadership.  The results of our study and experience show that a PSH may help facilitate changes in clinical practice quicker than other less-coordinated models of care.  As PSH models continue to be developed, further evidence to support the impact of clinical practice changes on patient-oriented outcomes related to quality and safety and healthcare economics is needed.

For patient education materials regarding anesthetic options for knee replacement surgery, please visit My Knee Guide.

 

 

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Physician-Led Anesthesia is Safe Anesthesia

Anesthesia1Many people, even those who work in the operating room every day, take safe anesthesia care for granted.  There has been growing pressure recently to abandon the team model and remove physician anesthesiologists’ supervision of nurse anesthetists with the latest threat coming from within Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare.  For our Veterans, our heroes and arguably some of the most medically complex patients, having both physician anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists working together as a team makes sense.

Having a team with members who train differently and have different perspectives can only benefit the patient; physician anesthesiologists draw on their medical training while nurse anesthetists bring valuable nursing experience.  Providing anesthesia is often compared to flying a passenger airplane, and the care team model is like having both a pilot and a co-pilot.  Has flying become so safe that we no longer need the pilot?  Seconds count in flight, and they count in the operating room when a patient’s life is on the line.  If approved, the proposed change in the VA nursing handbook will abolish this team model without giving Veterans a choice and will require VA hospitals to assign Veterans having surgery either a nurse anesthetist OR a physician anesthesiologist but not offer both.  If they were given the choice, however, I think our Veterans would choose “AND” instead of “OR.”  We all should.  In case a crisis happens during surgery, every patient should have access to a physician anesthesiologist.

Not too long ago operating room personnel had to worry about explosive anesthetic gases, and patients faced the risk of developing organ failure after every time they had anesthesia in addition to the usual perils of having surgery.  This changed when anesthesiology became a medical specialty and profession for physicians.

How is anesthesiology different than anesthesia?  Anesthesia, a word with Greek origin, means “without sensation.”  Often referred to as “going to sleep,” general anesthesia is more like a complex drug-induced coma that can still carry serious risk, and a person’s physical and emotional reactions to anesthetic agents are not always predictable.

Anesthesiology is a science like biology or physiology and a specialty field of medicine like cardiology or radiology.  Modern anesthesiologists are physicians, scientists, educators, and patient safety advocates.  The heart of anesthesiology continues to be the patient experience.  As physician anesthesiologists, we specialize in relieving anxiety, preventing and treating pain, preventing and managing complications related to surgery, and improving the outcomes for patients who undergo invasive procedures.  The average physician anesthesiologist spends nearly a decade in postgraduate education after college and logs 16,000 hours of clinical training to learn to apply the best available evidence in clinical practice.  Academic physicians and scientists focused on anesthesiology are responsible for the discovery of the newer and safer anesthetic and analgesic agents we use every day.

Anesthesia administration by non-physicians such as nurse anesthetists and certified anesthesiologist assistants is supported by the American Society of Anesthesiologists within the physician-led anesthesia care team model.  A similar model is used in the intensive care unit with physician intensivists supervising teams that include acute care nurse practitioners.  To preserve safe, high-quality physician-led anesthesia care for our nation’s Veterans, please support the team model and #SafeVACare by speaking up on http://www.safevacare.org by July 25th.  It only takes a minute to post a comment, but the consequences of not saying something may be serious and long-lasting.

This post has also been featured on KevinMD.com.

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The Future of Acute Pain Medicine Training

AVC.Pain_We all know that not all pain is the same. While chronic pain can sometimes be palliated, “acute” pain (new onset, often with an identifiable cause) must be aggressively managed and, ideally, eliminated. This requires a systems-based approach led by physicians dedicated to understanding acute pain pathophysiology and investigating new ways to treat it. 

The #opioidepidemic has given us more reason to elevate acute #pain training and science.

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In December 2013, I submitted a 161-page letter to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requesting that regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine be considered for fellowship accreditation, with a lot of help from a small group of fellowship directors and colleagues from obstetric anesthesiology who recently went through the ACGME accreditation process for their fellowships. With no requests for further information, the Board of Directors of the ACGME informed me in the fall of 2014 that Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine (RAAPM) will be the next accredited subspecialty fellowship within the core discipline of Anesthesiology.  The draft program requirements have been posted online for public comments.  After the comment period, these program requirements will be revised and then finalized for posting by the ACGME. At that point, which may be as early as the end of this year, institutions with RAAPM fellowships will be invited to apply for accreditation.

I have received many questions from ASRA members about this process to date, so below I have provided some of my answers to the most common ones:

Why do we need “another” fellowship dedicated to pain medicine?  Although we already have a board-certified subspecialty of Pain Medicine within Anesthesiology, there is a growing demand for physicians who specialize in hospital-based acute pain medicine. For Pain Medicine fellows, the required “Acute Pain Inpatient Experience” may be satisfied by documented involvement with a minimum of only 50 new patients and the spectrum of pain diagnoses and treatments that they are required to learn during one year is vast. Further, Pain Medicine is a board-certified subspecialty of Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Psychiatry and Neurology, in addition to Anesthesiology; graduates from any of these residency programs can be accepted into the one-year Pain Medicine fellowship and will not be as familiar with surgical or trauma-induced acute pain as an anesthesiology residency graduate. Anesthesiology is a hospital-based medical specialty, and anesthesiologists are physicians who focus on a  daily basis on the prevention and treatment of pain for their patients who undergo surgery, suffer trauma, or present for childbirth. History also supports the evolution of acute pain medicine through anesthesiology. The concept of an anesthesiology-led acute pain management service was described first in 1988 (1), but arguably the techniques employed in modern acute pain medicine and regional anesthesiology date back to Gaston Labat’s publication of Regional Anesthesia: Its Technic and Clinical Application in 1922, with advancement and refinement of this subspecialty in the 1960s and 1970s (2-6). Finally, a recent survey study shows that the great majority (83.7%) of practicing pain physicians in the United States focus only on chronic pain (7).

Over 80% of practicing #pain physicians in the US focus only on chronic pain and not acute.

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Why do anesthesiology residency graduates still need to do a fellowship in RAAPM? By the time they complete the core residency in anesthesiology today, not all residents have gained sufficient clinical experience to provide optimal care for the complete spectrum of issues experienced by patients suffering from acutely painful conditions, including the ability to reliably provide advanced interventional techniques proven to be effective in managing pain in the acute setting (8-12). We need physician leaders who can run acute pain medicine teams and design systems to provide individualized, comprehensive, and timely pain management for both medical and surgical patients in the hospital, expeditiously managing requests for assistance when pain intensity levels exceed those set forth in quality standards, or to prevent pain intensity from reaching such levels. The mission statement for the Acute Pain Medicine Special Interest Group within the American Academy of Pain Medicine provides clear justification.

Will RAAPM fellowship graduates get jobs when they are done? Although no one can make this guarantee, there are good reasons to think that there will be growing demand for RAAPM graduates in the future. In a survey of fellowship graduates and academic chairs published in 2005, 61 of 132 of academic chairs responded (46%), noting that future staffing models for their department will likely include an average of two additional faculty trained in regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine (13). RAAPM fellowship graduates are the only physicians who can say that their subspecialty training is entirely dedicated to improving the patient experience. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey is administered to a random sample of patients who have received inpatient care and receive government insurance through Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The survey consists of 32 questions and is intended to assess the “patient experience of care” domain in the value-based purchasing program. A hospital’s survey scores are publicly disclosed and make up 30% of the formula used to determine how much of its diagnosis-related group payment withholding will be paid by CMS at the end of each year. Of the 32 questions, 7 directly or indirectly relate to in-hospital pain management.

Are we ready for accreditation? Currently, there are over 60 institutions in the United States and Canada that list themselves as having nonaccredited fellowship training programs focused on RAAPM on the ASRA website. Since 2002, the group of regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine fellowship directors has been meeting twice yearly at the ASRA Annual Spring Meeting and the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Annual Meeting in the fall. Despite not being an ACGME-accredited fellowship, this group, has been voluntarily engaged in developing and refining training guidelines as the foundation for the fellowship. These guidelines, originally published in Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine in 2005 (14) with a revision in 2011 (15) have been recently released as the third edition (16). Formal ACGME program requirements will serve as a measuring stick to hopefully ensure that the certificates that RAAPM fellowship graduates receive from all accredited programs will share some common value.

As with other medical subspecialties, acute pain medicine has emerged due to the need for trained specialists—in this case, those who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to efficiently manage a high volume of inpatient consultations, anticipate the analgesic needs of a wide range of patients based on preoperative risk, use a multimodal approach to manage and prevent pain when possible, and aggressively treat severe acute pain when it occurs to prevent it from transitioning into chronic pain. The RAAPM fellowship graduate must be a physician leader who is capable of collaborating with other healthcare providers in anesthesiology, surgery, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, and more to establish multidisciplinary programs that add value and improve patient care in the hospital setting and beyond.

This article originally appeared in the February 2016 issue of ASRA News.  As of October 2016, the regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine is the newest accredited subspecialty fellowship within anesthesiology, and programs may now apply for accreditation to the ACGME.

REFERENCES

  1. Ready LB, Oden R, Chadwick HS, Benedetti C, Rooke GA, Caplan R, Wild LM. Development of an anesthesiology-based postoperative pain management service. Anesthesiology. 1988; 68:100-6.
  2. Winnie AP, Ramamurthy S, Durrani Z. The inguinal paravascular technic of lumbar plexus anesthesia: the “3-in-1 block.” Anesth Analg. 1973; 52:989-96.
  3. Winnie AP, Collins VJ. The subclavian perivascular technique of brachial plexus anesthesia. Anesthesiology. 1964; 25:353-63.
  4. Raj PP, Montgomery SJ, Nettles D, Jenkins MT Infraclavicular brachial plexus block–a new approach. Anesth Analg. 1973; 52:897-904.
  5. Raj PP, Parks RI, Watson TD, Jenkins MT. A new single-position supine approach to sciatic-femoral nerve block. Anesth Analg. 1975; 54:489-93.
  6. Raj PP, Rosenblatt R, Miller J, Katz RL, Carden E. Dynamics of local-anesthetic compounds in regional anesthesia. Anesth Analg 1977; 56: 110-7.
  7. Breuer B, Pappagallo M, Tai JY, Portenoy RK. U.S. board-certified pain physician practices: uniformity and census data of their locations. J Pain. 2007; 8: 244-50.
  8. Buvanendran A, Kroin JS. Multimodal analgesia for controlling acute postoperative pain. Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2009; 22: 588-93.
  9. Hebl JR, Dilger JA, Byer DE, Kopp SL, Stevens SR, Pagnano MW, Hanssen AD, Horlocker TT. A pre-emptive multimodal pathway featuring peripheral nerve block improves perioperative outcomes after major orthopedic surgery. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2008; 33: 510-7.
  10. Jin F, Chung F. Multimodal analgesia for postoperative pain control. J Clin Anesth. 2001; 13: 524-39.
  11. Kehlet H, Dahl JB. The value of “multimodal” or “balanced analgesia” in postoperative pain treatment. Anesth Analg. 1993; 77: 1048-56.
  12. Young A, Buvanendran A.Recent advances in multimodal analgesia. Anesthesiol Clin. 2012; 30: 91-100.
  13. Neal JM, Kopacz DJ, Liguori GA, Beckman JD, Hargett MJ. The training and careers of regional anesthesia fellows–1983-2002. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2005; 30: 226-32.
  14. Hargett MJ, Beckman JD, Liguori GA, Neal JM. Guidelines for regional anesthesia fellowship training. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2005; 30: 218-25.
  15. Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship Directors Group. Guidelines for fellowship training in regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine: second edition, 2010. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2011; 36: 282-8.
  16. Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Fellowship Directors Group. Guidelines for fellowship training in regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine: third edition, 2014. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2015; 40: 213-7.

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Anesthesiology, Healthcare, Outcomes Research, Pain Medicine, Patient Safety, Regional Anesthesiology

Pain Medicine, Perioperative Surgical Home, and the Patient Experience

VAPAHealthcare around the world is changing. In the United States, healthcare reform has been focused on achieving the “triple aim” as described by Berwick (1). This triple aim encompasses 3 goals: improving the patient experience, reducing costs of care, and improving population health. The Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) is a conceptual model introduced by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) in the past 5 years that may serve as an integrator to help hospitals achieve the triple aim (2). PSH is defined as “a patient-centered, physician anesthesiologist-led, multidisciplinary team-based practice model that coordinates surgical patient care throughout the continuum from the decision to pursue surgery through convalescence” (3). In reality, a PSH can take many forms, and the concept is analogous to the “Perioperative Medicine: the Pathway to Better Surgical Care” initiative by the Royal College of Anaesthetists in the United Kingdom. To date, there have been few published descriptions of actual PSH programs.

#Pain medicine is woven throughout perioperative care and #PtExp

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Role of Pain Medicine in the PSH

Pain medicine is woven throughout the three main elements of the PSH: preoperative preparation, intraoperative care, and postoperative recovery and rehabilitation (4). Preoperatively, anesthesiologists and pain medicine specialists have an opportunity to influence patient care by identifying patients who are considered high risk for surgery and tailor an individualized preoperative preparation plan for them. For example, the patient with chronic pain treated with long-acting opioids may benefit from optimizing the preoperative analgesic medication regimen, even tapering the opioid dose, or prescribing cognitive, behavioral, or physical therapy prior to elective major surgery like lower extremity joint replacement. During the intraoperative period, anesthetic protocols provide consistent care for surgical patients, and implementing clinical pathways that include regional anesthesia techniques have been shown to decrease perioperative opioid use and improve outcomes. For patients who have surgery, pain has a profound influence on the hospital experience. In the United States, the patient experience of care is one of three domains that influence hospital incentive payment amounts from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Patient experience is assessed using a survey, and 7 of 32 questions directly or indirectly relate to pain management (5). After the immediate postoperative period, integrated pain management can help patients achieve physical therapy goals and facilitate the transition to after-hospital rehabilitation. For challenging patients with chronic pain, this process may require careful coordination between the in-hospital anesthesiologist, outpatient pain clinic physician, and primary care physician (4).

Perioperative care of chronic #pain patients takes multi-disciplinary coordination

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Thinking Beyond Pain

The practice of anesthesiology in the United States is evolving, and there is a greater emphasis on demonstrating value. Anesthesiologists have historically been successful in establishing perioperative clinical pathways that improve acute pain management especially in orthopedic surgery, and setting up regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine programs has played a key role (6). However, competing priorities require revision of clinical pathways from time to time. For example, concerns regarding quadriceps muscle weakness with femoral nerve blocks (7) and the potential for falls (8) have led to innovations in selective nerve block techniques for knee replacement patients (9) and greater achievements in functional rehabilitation (10). By establishing a PSH model, anesthesiologists have greater opportunity but also greater responsibility for reducing perioperative complications that may or may not typically be considered within the realm of anesthesiology (11).

Future Directions

physical_med_rehab_indexTo date, anesthetic interventions focused on targeting acute pain have not demonstrated long-term functional benefits (12,13). Perhaps implementation of a PSH with better care coordination that includes individualized preoperative preparation and follow-up after surgery during rehabilitation will have greater potential for positive long-term outcomes. In addition to improvements in functional outcomes, a PSH may be able to provide patients a smoother transition from hospital to home in terms of pain management and decrease the incidence of chronic pain after common elective procedures like joint replacement (14). Finally, more health economic research is needed to prove the financial benefits of a PSH in terms of cost savings for hospitals.

Need to focus #research on long-term outcomes after #anesthesia and #surgery

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In summary, the PSH is a model that can be applied many ways to provide coordinated care of the surgical patient from the decision to proceed with surgery through convalescence. Pain medicine plays an integral role in any PSH implementation. However, to be effective, anesthesiologists as leaders of the PSH need to target improvement strategies beyond pain outcomes and the immediate postoperative period.

References

  1. Berwick DM, Nolan TW, Whittington J: The triple aim: care, health, and cost. Health Aff (Millwood) 2008; 27: 759-69
  2. Vetter TR, Boudreaux AM, Jones KA, Hunter JM, Jr., Pittet JF: The perioperative surgical home: how anesthesiology can collaboratively achieve and leverage the triple aim in health care. Anesth Analg 2014; 118: 1131-6
  3. Mariano ER, Walters TL, Kim TE, Kain ZN: Why the perioperative surgical home makes sense for veterans affairs health care. Anesth Analg 2015; 120: 1163-6
  4. Walters TL, Mariano ER, Clark JD: Perioperative Surgical Home and the Integral Role of Pain Medicine. Pain Med 2015; 16: 1666-72
  5. Mariano ER, Miller B, Salinas FV: The expanding role of multimodal analgesia in acute perioperative pain management. Adv Anesth 2013; 31: 119-136
  6. Mariano ER: Making it work: setting up a regional anesthesia program that provides value. Anesthesiol Clin 2008; 26: 681-92, vi
  7. Charous MT, Madison SJ, Suresh PJ, Sandhu NS, Loland VJ, Mariano ER, Donohue MC, Dutton PH, Ferguson EJ, Ilfeld BM: Continuous femoral nerve blocks: varying local anesthetic delivery method (bolus versus basal) to minimize quadriceps motor block while maintaining sensory block. Anesthesiology 2011; 115: 774-81
  8. Feibel RJ, Dervin GF, Kim PR, Beaule PE: Major complications associated with femoral nerve catheters for knee arthroplasty: a word of caution. J Arthroplasty 2009; 24: 132-7
  9. Lund J, Jenstrup MT, Jaeger P, Sorensen AM, Dahl JB: Continuous adductor-canal-blockade for adjuvant post-operative analgesia after major knee surgery: preliminary results. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2011; 55: 14-9
  10. Mudumbai SC, Kim TE, Howard SK, Workman JJ, Giori N, Woolson S, Ganaway T, King R, Mariano ER: Continuous adductor canal blocks are superior to continuous femoral nerve blocks in promoting early ambulation after TKA. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2014; 472: 1377-83
  11. Kim TE, Mariano ER: Developing a Multidisciplinary Fall Reduction Program for Lower-Extremity Joint Arthroplasty Patients. Anesthesiol Clin 2014; 32: 853-864
  12. Ilfeld BM, Ball ST, Gearen PF, Mariano ER, Le LT, Vandenborne K, Duncan PW, Sessler DI, Enneking FK, Shuster JJ, Maldonado RC, Meyer RS: Health-related quality of life after hip arthroplasty with and without an extended-duration continuous posterior lumbar plexus nerve block: a prospective, 1-year follow-up of a randomized, triple-masked, placebo-controlled study. Anesth Analg 2009; 109: 586-91
  13. Ilfeld BM, Shuster JJ, Theriaque DW, Mariano ER, Girard PJ, Loland VJ, Meyer S, Donovan JF, Pugh GA, Le LT, Sessler DI, Ball ST: Long-term pain, stiffness, and functional disability after total knee arthroplasty with and without an extended ambulatory continuous femoral nerve block: a prospective, 1-year follow-up of a multicenter, randomized, triple-masked, placebo-controlled trial. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2011; 36: 116-20
  14. Lavand’homme PM, Grosu I, France MN, Thienpont E: Pain trajectories identify patients at risk of persistent pain after knee arthroplasty: an observational study. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2014; 472: 1409-15

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Anesthesiology, California Society of Anesthesiologists, Healthcare, Leadership, Medical Education

To the Next Generation of Physician Leaders

I was recently invited to visit an academic anesthesiology department to speak to the residents about becoming a leader (see SlideShare). In addition to recognizing the honor and privilege of addressing this important topic with the next generation of physician anesthesiologists, I had two other initial thoughts: 1) I must be getting old; and 2) This isn’t going to be easy.

Balloon FiestaI came up with a short list of lessons that I’ve learned over the years. While some examples I included are anesthesiology-specific, the lessons themselves are not. Please feel free to edit, adapt, and add to this list; then disseminate it to the future physician leaders who will one day take our places.

  1. First and foremost, be a good doctor. Always remember that we as physicians take an oath. In the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath commonly recited at medical school graduations today, we say, “May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.” As a physician anesthesiologist, we care for the most vulnerable of patients—those who under anesthesia cannot care for themselves. Examples of anesthesiologists who do not honor their calling exist in the news and even scientific journals, but we cannot follow this path. 
    Medicine is, and always should be, a calling.

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  2. Define your identity. We live in the era of the “provider,” and this sometimes causes role confusion from the perspective of our patients. Team PhotoWe also don’t tend to do ourselves any favors. How many times have you heard someone say, “Hi I’m [first name only] with anesthesia”? According to the American Society of Anesthesiologists newsletter, approximately 60% of the public may not know that physician anesthesiologists go to medical school. While every member of the anesthesia care team plays a crucial role, the next level of non-physician provider in this model has one-tenth the amount of clinical training when compared to a physician anesthesiologist at graduation. I’ve written before about what I love about being an anesthesiologist, and being the physician whom patients trust to keep them safe during surgery is a privilege which comes with a great deal of responsibility.
  3. Consider the “big picture.” The health care enterprise is constantly evolving. Today, the emphasis is on value and not volume. Value takes into account quality and cost with the highest quality care at the lowest cost being the ultimate goal. The private practice model of anesthesiology has changed dramatically in the last few years with the growth of “mega-groups” created by vertical and horizontal integration of smaller practices and sometimes purchased by private investors. In this environment, physician anesthesiologists and anesthesiology groups will have to consider ways they can add value, improve the patient experience, and reduce costs of care in order to stay relevant and competitive.
  4. Promote positive change. Observe, ask questions, hypothesize solutions, collect data, evaluate results, draw conclusions, and form new hypotheses—these are all elements of the scientific method and clinical medicine. These steps are also common to process improvement, making physicians perfectly capable of system redesign. The key is establishing your team’s mission and vision, strategic planning and goal-setting, and regularly evaluating progress. Books have been written on these subjects, so I can’t do these topics justice here. In my opinion, physicians offer an important and necessary perspective that cannot be lost as healthcare becomes more and more business-like.
  5. Be open to opportunities. Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” I have written previously about the merits of saying yes. As a resident or new staff physician, it often seems impossible to get involved. However, most hospital committee meetings are open to guests. Consider going to one that covers a topic of interest and volunteer for a task if the opportunity presents itself. In addition, many professional societies invite members to self-nominate for committees or submit proposals for educational activities at their annual meetings.
  6. IMG_7673Thank your team. Taking the first steps on the path to leadership is not going to be easy. There will be many obstacles, not the least of which is time management. A high-functioning healthcare team of diverse backgrounds, skills, and abilities will accomplish much more than what an individual can do alone. Celebrate team wins. Respect each team member’s opinion even when it differs from yours.
Always remember to thank your team, and do it early and often. #leadership

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A good leader should earn the trust of his or her team every day.

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Knee Replacement, Medical Education, Pain Medicine, Regional Anesthesiology

Multimodal Pain Relief after Knee Replacement

Knee-pain 2Knee replacement is one of the most commonly performed operations in the United States with over 700,000 procedures performed annually (1). Besides providing anesthesia care in the operating room, anesthesiologists are dedicated to providing the best perioperative pain management in order to improve patients’ function and facilitate rehabilitation after surgery. In the past, pain management was limited to the use of opioids (narcotics). Opioids only attack pain in one way, and just adding more opioids does not usually lead to better pain control.

Today, we have more options at our disposal to help fight #pain after #kneereplacement.

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In 2012, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) published its guidelines for acute pain management in the perioperative setting (2). This document recommends “multimodal analgesia” which means that two or more classes of pain medications or therapies, working with different mechanisms of action, should be used in the treatment of acute pain.

While opioids are still important pain medications, they should be combined with other classes of medications known to help relieve postoperative pain unless contraindicated. These include:

  • Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs): Examples include ibuprofen, diclofenac, ketorolac, celecoxib. NSAIDs act on the prostaglandin system peripherally and work to decrease inflammation.
  • Acetaminophen: Acetaminophen acts on central prostaglandin synthesis and provides pain relief through multiple mechanisms.
  • Gabapentinoids: Examples include gabapentin and pregabalin. These medications are membrane stabilizers that essentially decrease nerve firing.

The ASA also strongly recommends the use of regional analgesic techniques as part of the multimodal analgesic protocol when indicated.

Epidural Analgesia

When compared to opioids alone, epidural analgesia produces lower pain scores and shorter time to achieve physical therapy goals (3). However, higher dose of local anesthetic (numbing medicine) may lead to muscle weakness that can limit activity (4). In addition, epidural analgesia can lead to common side effects (urinary retention, dizziness, itchiness) and is not selective for the operative leg, meaning that the non-operative leg may also become numb.

Femoral Nerve Block

A peripheral nerve block of the femoral nerve is specific to the operative leg. When compared to opioids alone, a femoral nerve block provides better pain control and leads to higher patient satisfaction (5). One area of controversy is whether a single-injection nerve block or catheter-based technique is preferred. There is evidence to support the use of continuous nerve block catheters to extend the pain relief and opioid-sparing benefits of nerve blocks in patients having major surgery like knee replacement. When a continuous femoral nerve block catheter is used, the pain relief is comparable to an epidural but without the epidural-related side effects (6). One legitimate concern raised over the use of femoral nerve blocks in knee replacement patients is the resulting quadriceps muscle weakness (7).

From Gray's Anatomy
From Gray’s Anatomy

Saphenous Nerve Block (Adductor Canal Block)

The saphenous nerve is the largest sensory branch of the femoral nerve and can be blocked within the adductor canal to provide postoperative pain relief and facilitate rehabilitation (8, 9). In healthy volunteers, quadriceps strength is better preserved when subjects receive an adductor canal block compared to a femoral nerve block (10).

In actual knee replacement patients, quadriceps function decreases regardless of nerve block type after surgery but to a lesser degree with adductor canal blocks (11). Recently there have been reports of quadriceps weakness resulting from adductor canal blocks and catheters that have affected clinical care (12, 13).

Fall Risk

According to a large retrospective study of almost 200,000 cases, the incidence of inpatient falls for patients after TKA is 1.6%, and perioperative use of nerve blocks is not associated with increased risk (14). Patient factors that increase the risk of falls include higher age, male sex, sleep apnea, delirium, anemia requiring blood transfusion, and intraoperative use of general anesthesia (14). The bottom line is that all knee replacement patients are at increased risk for falling due to multiple risk factors, and any clinical pathway should include fall prevention strategies and an emphasis on patient safety.

Other Local Anesthetic Techniques

In addition to a femoral nerve or adductor canal block, a sciatic nerve block is sometimes offered to provide a “complete” block of the leg. There are studies for and against this practice. Arguably, the benefit of a sciatic nerve block does not last beyond the first postoperative day (15). Surgeon-administered local anesthetic around the knee joint (local infiltration analgesia) can be combined with nerve block techniques to provide additional postoperative pain relief for the first few hours after surgery (16, 17).

For more information about anesthetic options for knee replacement, please see my post on My Knee Guide.

References

  1. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. FastStats: Inpatient Surgery. National Hospital Discharge Survey: 2010 table. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/inpatient-surgery.htm. Accessed January 30, 2015.
  2. American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Acute Pain M: Practice guidelines for acute pain management in the perioperative setting: an updated report by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Acute Pain Management. Anesthesiology 2012, 116(2):248-273.
  3. Mahoney OM, Noble PC, Davidson J, Tullos HS: The effect of continuous epidural analgesia on postoperative pain, rehabilitation, and duration of hospitalization in total knee arthroplasty. Clin Orthop Relat Res 1990(260):30-37.
  4. Raj PP, Knarr DC, Vigdorth E, Denson DD, Pither CE, Hartrick CT, Hopson CN, Edstrom HH: Comparison of continuous epidural infusion of a local anesthetic and administration of systemic narcotics in the management of pain after total knee replacement surgery. Anesth Analg 1987, 66(5):401-406.
  5. Chan EY, Fransen M, Parker DA, Assam PN, Chua N: Femoral nerve blocks for acute postoperative pain after knee replacement surgery. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2014, 5:CD009941.
  6. Barrington MJ, Olive D, Low K, Scott DA, Brittain J, Choong P: Continuous femoral nerve blockade or epidural analgesia after total knee replacement: a prospective randomized controlled trial. Anesth Analg 2005, 101(6):1824-1829.
  7. Charous MT, Madison SJ, Suresh PJ, Sandhu NS, Loland VJ, Mariano ER, Donohue MC, Dutton PH, Ferguson EJ, Ilfeld BM: Continuous femoral nerve blocks: varying local anesthetic delivery method (bolus versus basal) to minimize quadriceps motor block while maintaining sensory block. Anesthesiology 2011, 115(4):774-781.
  8. Jenstrup MT, Jaeger P, Lund J, Fomsgaard JS, Bache S, Mathiesen O, Larsen TK, Dahl JB: Effects of adductor-canal-blockade on pain and ambulation after total knee arthroplasty: a randomized study. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2012, 56(3):357-364.
  9. Hanson NA, Allen CJ, Hostetter LS, Nagy R, Derby RE, Slee AE, Arslan A, Auyong DB: Continuous ultrasound-guided adductor canal block for total knee arthroplasty: a randomized, double-blind trial. Anesth Analg 2014, 118(6):1370-1377.
  10. Kwofie MK, Shastri UD, Gadsden JC, Sinha SK, Abrams JH, Xu D, Salviz EA: The effects of ultrasound-guided adductor canal block versus femoral nerve block on quadriceps strength and fall risk: a blinded, randomized trial of volunteers. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2013, 38(4):321-325.
  11. Jaeger P, Zaric D, Fomsgaard JS, Hilsted KL, Bjerregaard J, Gyrn J, Mathiesen O, Larsen TK, Dahl JB: Adductor canal block versus femoral nerve block for analgesia after total knee arthroplasty: a randomized, double-blind study. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2013, 38(6):526-532.
  12. Chen J, Lesser JB, Hadzic A, Reiss W, Resta-Flarer F: Adductor canal block can result in motor block of the quadriceps muscle. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2014, 39(2):170-171.
  13. Veal C, Auyong DB, Hanson NA, Allen CJ, Strodtbeck W: Delayed quadriceps weakness after continuous adductor canal block for total knee arthroplasty: a case report. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2014, 58(3):362-364.
  14. Memtsoudis SG, Danninger T, Rasul R, Poeran J, Gerner P, Stundner O, Mariano ER, Mazumdar M: Inpatient falls after total knee arthroplasty: the role of anesthesia type and peripheral nerve blocks. Anesthesiology 2014, 120(3):551-563.
  15. Abdallah FW, Brull R: Is sciatic nerve block advantageous when combined with femoral nerve block for postoperative analgesia following total knee arthroplasty? A systematic review. Reg Anesth Pain Med 2011, 36(5):493-498.
  16. Mudumbai SC, Kim TE, Howard SK, Workman JJ, Giori N, Woolson S, Ganaway T, King R, Mariano ER: Continuous adductor canal blocks are superior to continuous femoral nerve blocks in promoting early ambulation after TKA. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2014, 472(5):1377-1383.
  17. Mariano ER, Kim TE, Wagner MJ, Funck N, Harrison TK, Walters T, Giori N, Woolson S, Ganaway T, Howard SK: A randomized comparison of proximal and distal ultrasound-guided adductor canal catheter insertion sites for knee arthroplasty. J Ultrasound Med 2014, 33(9):1653-1662.

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