A Quality Improvement Project Using PAINAD to Improve Pain Management and Opioid Reduction in Persons with Dementia

Pain identification and management for patients with dementia can be a challenge given difficulties with communication and atypical presentations. Recent review of the CIHI data for this LTC site showed a trend towards an increase in the QI indicator “has pain” from 6.70% in Q1 of 2015 to 9.0 in the most recent assessment in the 4th quarter of 2017. The current pain assessment tool used across our sites, which includes a visual analogue scale, is not specific to patients with dementia. This tool can be time consuming and cumbersome with nume rous questions that pose a barrier for consistent use amongst staff.
Source: Journal of the American Medical Directors Association - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Quality Improvement Source Type: research