Patient Controlled Analgesia is one of the new approaches to healthcare that has gained popularity in recent years. What is important to understand about Patient Controlled Analgesia is that one must possess a proper knowledge of the treatments and procedures if they are going to have success in administering the care themselves, (Patient Controlled Analgesia For Adults, 2016). Patient Controlled Analgesia essentially allows an individual who has an illness administer their own pain medications through an IV, (Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) Guidelines of Care: For the Opioid Naïve Patient, 2008). The way that this kind of healthcare works is that there is a machine that attaches to the patient and administers the medicine slowly through an IV, (Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) Guidelines of Care: For the Opioid Naïve Patient, 2008). What is unique about the PCA machine is that it will not allow the patient to get an overdose of the medicine because it is programmed to the appropriate dosage for the patient’s needs.
PCA technology can be used to assist a patient who has just been in an accident or a patient who needs long term care for a terminal illness, (Taylor, N.M., 1996). What makes PCA technology so wonderful is that it allows the patient to live a higher quality of life that may not necessarily be in the hospital. Patients typically tend to see better results when they are removed from the hospital environment and the PCA technology allows this to be possible, which is truly remarkable. While the PCA technology is wonderful, there also has to be a focus on safety given that the patient is still receiving prescription drugs that is outside the supervision of a hospital environment, (Cohen, M., 2016). This is precisely why patients ideally should have regular visits with their nurse or doctor in order to verify that the machine is working properly to avoid any overdoses of the specified medicine amount by the patient’s physician. By doing this, PCA technology will be a great asset to many current and future patients due to the fact that the machine allows the patient to have a higher quality of life while they are undergoing medical treatment.
References
Cohen, M. (2016). Patient – Controlled Analgesia: Making it Safer for Patients. Retrieved from: https://www.ismp.org/profdevelopment/PCAMonograph.pdf
Patack, L. (2014). Patient Perspectives of Patient-Controlled Analgesia (PCA) and Methods for Improving Pain Control and Patient Satisfaction. NIH Public Access. pgs. 1 – 17.
Patient Controlled Analgesia For Adults. (2016). Drugs.com. Retrieved from: http://www.drugs.com/cg/patient-controlled-analgesia-for-adults.html
Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) Guidelines of Care: For the Opioid Naïve Patient. (2008). San Diego Patient Safety Taskforce. Retrieved from: http://www.hasdic.org/documents/tool-kit-pca.pdf
Taylor, N.M. (1996). Patients’ Experiences of Patient-Controlled Analgesia. Anaesthesia. Volume 51, pgs. 525 – 528.
