From Today’s Hospitalist:
After the hospital’s success with that initial patient, Dr. Hilger helped devise two templates for specialized care plans, one for pain management and the other for ED/ hospital admissions.
The pain management template very explicitly spells out that doctors will not prescribe any IV or oral narcotics for subjective pain without objective findings on an exam or workup, nor will there be repeated CTs or other imaging for self-reported pain-related problems. The template also makes it clear that all pain-related issues need to be addressed not at the hospital, but in the patient’s clinic or with his or her regular physician.
The ED/hospital admission care plan template, on the other hand, is designed to prevent what Dr. Hilger calls “verbal and physical acting-out behaviors,” and to ensure that difficult patients comply with ordered therapies.
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