Clinical and Economic Implications Related to Postsurgical Analgesic Devices

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Fortunately, various technological advances have helped to improve postsurgical analgesic therapy. Serving as an alternative or adjunct to traditional pain management techniques, infusion devices may be used to enhance the delivery of pain medication, thereby optimizing the quality of patient care. Patientcontrolled analgesic (PCA) devices allow opioid analgesics to be delivered to patients via intravenous (IV), epidural, and transdermal administration. A common and effective means of managing postsurgical pain, PCA allows patients to self-administer more frequent but smaller doses of medication, which may minimize the risk for oversedation while achieving patients’ comfort goals. 4 Furthermore, continuous administration of local anesthetics, which has an opioid-sparing effect, may be used in conjunction with opioid therapy to establish a multimodal approach to pain management. Such an approach may reduce the rate of adverse events associated with conventional treatment and may expedite recovery following surgery. 2