Analgesia quality index may improve quality of management of postoperative pain
Di Wang recently said Clinical application of the AQI may guide optimum pain management postoperatively, suggesting its use as a monitoring tool to supervise anesthesiologists and nurses. This significantly improves postoperative analgesia management quality and facilitates continuous improvement through the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle.
The study has emphasized the potential of machine learning and wireless technology in providing intelligent and data-driven solutions for postoperative pain management, promoting efficiency, and enhancing patient satisfaction.
The study is published in BMC Anesthesiology.
The advantages of artificial intelligence patient-controlled analgesia (AI-PCA) are already known. It is associated with remote monitoring of analgesia management, implementing mobile ward rounds, and automatically recording data in the clinical setting. But it has limitations, too, as it cannot quantify postoperative analgesia management quality.
To address the issues and re-monitor and re-evaluate the system, equipment, medical staff and degree of patient matching to quantify the quality of postoperative pain management through machine learning, researchers established an index (analgesia quality index (AQI).
They utilized the wireless analgesic pump system database of the Cancer Hospital Affiliated with Nantong University. They recruited patients who underwent postoperative analgesia using AI-PCA (June 1, 2014 - August 31, 2021).
There were two groups, control and experimental. The control group did not receive the AQI guidance, while the experimental group received the AQI guidance for postoperative analgesia.
They measured primary outcomes as the incidence of moderate-to-severe pain, and total adverse reactions were the secondary outcomes.
The results of the study are:
- There were 14,747 patients in the study.
- In the control and experimental group, the incidence of moderate-to-severe pain was 26.3% and 21.7%, respectively.
- Between the groups, the estimated ratio difference was 4.6%.
- The differences in the incidence of total adverse reactions were nonsignificant.
Based on the study findings, we found that AQI application decreased the incidence of moderate-to-severe pain.
AQI Clinical application improved the quality of postoperative analgesia management and guides optimum pain management in the postoperative setting.
Further reading:
https://bmcanesthesiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12871-023-02240-8
