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Adrienne Batterton Clinical Nurse Specialist, Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine, Counties Manukau DHB, Auckland, NZ |
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Adrienne started nursing in the nineties. Since then, she has held a variety of roles at Counties Manukau Health, in both clinical nursing and hospital management. The most recent of these is Clinical Nurse Specialist within Anaesthesia & Pain Medicine, where for the last three years her focus has been on assisting to develop an integrated service across the pain spectrum within CM Health. By using quality improvement methodology, and working in a multidisciplinary team, Adrienne has helped to guide the development of a holistic and integrated pain service, thereby aiming to meet the needs of a wide range of pain service users.” Bridging the Divide between Acute and Chronic Pain Services Ever had the experience where a client’s pain problems seemed too tricky to tackle within the scope of an Acute Pain round? Needed better co-ordination for people suffering chronic pain whilst an inpatient? This is challenge we were facing in 2013 when we decided we needed to offer something better, so we embarked on a quality initiative to improve the care for this complex group of inpatients. I will outline the steps we took to operationalise the initiative and how we have used improvement science to progress the service since its inception. The discussion will also cover how we used data to prove that the service was delivering on its goals and promises, and share some of the highlights and pitfalls we have discovered in our improvement journey towards bridging the gap between acute pain and chronic pain services within our organisation. |