Thirty-five Years of Acute Pain Services: Where Do We Go From Here?

Acute pain services (APS) have developed over the past 35 years. Originally implemented solely to care for patients with regional catheters or patient-controlled analgesia after surgery, APS have become providers of care throughout the perioperative period, with some institutions even taking the additional step toward providing outpatient services for patients with acute pain. Models vary considerably in terms of tasks and responsibilities, staffing, education, protocols, quality, and financing. Many challenges face today's APS, including the increasing number of patients with preexisting chronic pain, intake of analgesics and opioids before surgery, substance-dependent patients needing special care, shorter hospital stays, early discharge of patients in need of further analgesic treatment, prevention and treatment of chronic postsurgical pain, minimization of adverse events, and side effects of treatment. However, many APS lack a clear-cut definition of their structures, tasks, and quality. Development of APS in the future will require us to face urgent questions, such as, "What are meaningful outcome variables?" and, "How do we define high quality?" It is obvious that focusing exclusively on pain scores does not reflect the complexity of pain and recovery. A broader approach is needed-a common concept of surgical and anesthesiological services within a hospital (eg, procedure-specific patient pathways as indicated by the programs "enhanced recovery after surgery" or the "perioperative surgical home"), with patient-reported outcome measures as one central quality criterion. Pain-related functional impairment, treatment-induced side effects, speed of mobilization, as well as return to normal function and everyday activities are key.