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What is the NPS acute postoperative pain (APOP) drug use evaluation (DUE) toolkit? What is the NPS acute postoperative pain (APOP) drug use evaluation (DUE) toolkit?
The APOP DUE toolkit has been created following completion of a national quality improvement project in 62 Australian public and private hospitals. It includes data collection and summary reporting within the e-DUE audit tool along with educational resources to assist healthcare professionals, their hospitals and area health services to undertake ongoing quality improvement/DUE activities in the area of acute postoperative pain management.
The DUE cycle
The APOP DUE toolkit follows the steps outlined in the APOP DUE cycle.
The educational resources provided in the toolkit were developed for the NPS APOP project (2006-07) based on the best available evidence and recommendations from the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and Faculty of Pain Medicine, Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence, second edition and the Therapeutic Guidelines: Analgesic, version 4.
Why use the NPS APOP DUE toolkit
The APOP DUE toolkit enables users to:
- audit the quality of patient care in acute postoperative pain management by measuring key quality indicators
- provide real-time reporting of key indicators/performance measures at an individual hospital level
- provide indicator feedback data in an accessible format that helps implement an appropriate educational intervention/quality improvement strategy
- undertake educational intervention for behaviour change.
- pain assessment and sedation scores
- postoperative analgesic use and safety of prescribing and administration
- patient perspectives on effective pain management and adverse effects
- discharge management.
Who should use the APOP DUE toolkit?
The toolkit is most suitable for use by hospital anaesthetic and surgical clinicians, nursing and pharmacy staff (including students – medical, pharmacy, nursing) and other health professionals.Note that this toolkit is not only intended for use by hospitals that participated in the initial APOP project, but any hospital with an interest in improving the quality of acute postoperative pain management.
