Articles: opioid.
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Preoperative exposure to opioids has recently shown to be associated with poor outcomes after elective major surgery, but little is known as to how pretreatment opioid use affects results of interventional back pain management. ⋯ Pretreatment opioid use is associated with greater pain discomfort, impairment, and reduced functional ability, as well as poorer long-term effect of interventional back pain treatment at one-month follow-up. In our study, opioid users reported the same positive effects of facet joint nerve blocks immediately after the treatment and 2 hours after the treatment, but a significantly smaller effect at one-month follow-up. This could indicate that opioid use may diminish the effects of pain treatments by affecting relearning, behavioral changes, and central pain modulation. These findings may help providers understand the effect of pretreatment opioid use on patient care, and its implications on hospital and societal costs.
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The Choosing Wisely Campaign was launched in 2012 and has been applied to a broad spectrum of disciplines in almost thirty countries, with the objective of reducing unnecessary or potentially harmful investigations and procedures, thus limiting costs and improving outcomes. In Canada, patients with burn injuries are usually initially assessed by primary care and emergency providers, while plastic or general surgeons provide ongoing management. We sought to develop a series of Choosing Wisely statements for burn care to guide these practitioners and inform suitable, cost-effective investigations and treatment choices. ⋯ The Choosing Wisely recommendations aim to encourage greater discussion between those involved in burn care, other health care professionals, and their patients, with a view to reduce the cost and adverse effects associated with unnecessary therapeutic and diagnostic procedures, while still maintaining high standards of evidence-based burn care.
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The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a novel challenge for healthcare delivery and implementation in the United States (US) in 2020 and beyond. Telemedicine arose as a significant and effective medium for safe and efficacious physician-patient interactions. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine while available, had infrequently been utilized in pain medicine practices due to difficulties with reimbursement, the learning curve associated with new technology usage, and the need for new logistical systems in place to implement telemedicine effectively. Given the unique constraints on the healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ubiquitous utilization of telemedicine among pain medicine physicians increased, giving insight into potential future roles for the technology beyond the pandemic. ⋯ Telemedicine as an emerging technology for efficient communication played a key role in mitigating the adverse effects of the COVID -19 pandemic on chronic pain patients. The utilization of telemedicine remarkably increased after the start of the pandemic within 1 to 2 weeks. Overall, private hospital-based centers were significantly less likely to implement telemedicine than academic centers, possibly due to limited access to secure telemedicine platforms and high start-up costs. Telemedicine was used more frequently for follow-up visits than initial visit encounters at most centers. In spite of the unforeseen consequences to the healthcare system and chronic pain practices in the US from COVID-19, telehealth has emerged as a unique model of care for patients with chronic pain. Although it has flaws, telehealth has the ability to increase access to care beyond the end of the pandemic. Further identification of barriers to the use of telemedicine platforms in private practices should be addressed from a policy perspective to facilitate increased care access.