Journal of clinical anesthesia
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To investigate changes that most surgical suites will need to make in the process of giving reports to family members on the day of surgery by the compliance date (April 14, 2003) of the privacy regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) of 1996. ⋯ Surgical facilities should strive to provide in-person progress reports to family members while their relatives are undergoing surgery. To satisfy HIPAA regulations, the staff and physicians who talk to family members in the waiting room will need to determine first if the patient has agreed to the release of information. As hospital information systems are updated to assure that this process is HIPAA-compliant, facilities can also incorporate the relevant statistical methods.
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Pain is one of the main postoperative adverse outcomes. Single analgesics, either opioid or nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), are not able to provide effective pain relief without side effects such as nausea, vomiting, sedation, or bleeding. A majority of double or single-blind studies investigating the use of NSAIDs and opioid analgesics with or without local anesthetic infiltration showed that patients experience lower pain scores, need fewer analgesics, and have a prolonged time to requiring analgesics after surgery. This review focuses on multimodal analgesia, which is currently recommended for effective postoperative pain control.