Pain clinic #12. The use of a self-administration system for oral analgesics on an orthopaedic service.

The use of patient-controlled analgesia systems in the postoperative period has become quite popular over the past several years. The systems to date have been limited to analgesics administered intravenously. The purpose of this study was to extend the use of a patient-controlled analgesia system to include oral analgesics during a patient's hospital stay.