Monday, December 26, 2011
Kevin Jones
Pain is one of the only completely subjective medical conditions. The only person who can know the experience is the person suffering from it, and everyone experiences pain differently. Doctors can perform all sorts of scans and tests but a perceived feeling isn’t something can be concretely diagnosed. Dealing with pain is tricky and mysterious, as everyone feels and deals with it differently, but physicians working in pain clinics can document and treat it more effectively when using a customized pain management EMR.
In a Modern Medicine article about pain and community pharmacists, the method in which most deal with pain can be quite unsafe: using pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical drugs to cope. "Pain is a nasty sensory and emotional experience, not an objective measure. People report pain in the absence of tissue damage or any likely pathophysiological cause. The vast majority of people use their medications appropriately and are not trying to game the system. If someone regards their experience as pain, if they report it in the same ways as pain caused by tissue damage, accept it as pain," said pain and palliative care specialist Scott Strassels, PharmD, PhD, BCPS. The implementation of a specialized pain management EMR in the practice lets doctors better document complaints, symptoms and treatments so a different course of action can be taken before the patient turns to the unsafe overuse drugs for relief.
An action plan for chronic physical discomfort can be devised from following the templates in a pain management EMR software solution. Like all EMRs, physicians can access entire patient histories, medication records and interactions, but one designed specifically for pain clinics contains content that general practice software does not. Physicians have access to templates for documenting patient complaints, how the pain affects their daily activities, what treatments they have tried and whether they worked or not. The specialized software also contains customizable-to-your-practice intricate interactive face and body diagrams to map out precise locations of pain, numbness or tingling and comes with pre-designed procedures as to how to treat it. Pre-loaded assessment notes, diagnoses and recommendations made just for pain clinics assist physicians make educated decisions about the next step in pain management care for the patient.
Source: http://www.healthtechnologyreview.com/st86_pain_management_emr_electronic_medical_relief.php
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2 comments:
Thank you for sharing this article about pain management EMR with us! I came across your blog while I was online reading articles on physical therapy billing because a co worker was recently telling me about it. I'm happy I did because this was a very informative and insightful read.
Thanks for sharing your post! I have been doing research on physical therapy billing and I came across your post. Thanks for the information, I believe some of it will be of great use in my paper. Thanks!
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