Feasibility of international data collection and feedback on post‐operative pain data: Proof of concept

Abstract

Post-operative pain exacts a high toll from patients, families, healthcare professionals and healthcare systems worldwide. PAIN-OUT is a research project funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Program designed to develop effective, evidence-based approaches to improve pain management after surgery, including creating a registry for feedback, benchmarking and decision support. In preparation for PAIN-OUT, we conducted a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of international data collection with feedback to participating sites. Adult orthopaedic or general surgery patients consented to participate between May and October 2008 at 14 collaborating hospitals in 13 countries. Project staff collected patient-reported outcomes and process data from 688 patients and entered the data into an online database. Project staff in 10 institutions met the enrolment criteria of collecting data from at least 50 patients. The completeness and quality of the data, as assessed by rate of missing data, were acceptable; only 2% of process data and 0.06% of patient-reported outcome data were missing. Participating institutions received access to select items as Web-based feedback comparing their outcomes to those of the other sites, presented anonymously. We achieved proof of concept because staff and patients in all 14 sites cooperated well despite marked differences in cultures, nationalities and languages, and a central database management team was able to provide valuable feedback to all.

Chronic postsurgical pain in Europe

“…[5][6][7][8] The participating centres in 11 different European countries were able to collect prospective data from 889 patients 12 months after surgery using validated questionnaires. Data were collected without additional dedicated manpower through electronic communication, representing a new approach for a prospective European CPSP study.…”

“…[5][6][7] A standardised postoperative questionnaire has been developed, translated and validated in different European languages. 8 A collaboration between the PAIN OUT network and the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) Clinical Trial Network provided an interesting opportunity to collect data on CPSP in a large European registry.…”

Age and preoperative pain are major confounders for sex differences in postoperative pain outcome: A prospective database analysis

“…The present study was conducted as part of the EU funded „Pain Out”project, an international multicenter benchmarking-project for the improvement of acute POP treatment (http://www.pain-out.eu) [14]; Institutional Review Board approval for the whole project was given in Jena, Germany (2723-12/09) and for the project site in Muenster (University Hospital of Muenster) by the local ethic committee Muenster, Germany (2009-936-b-S). Data presented here were collected prospectively between March 2010 and June 2011—exclusively in the University Hospital of Muenster, Germany, which is a specialist hospital for orthopedic surgery with several subspecialties providing supra-regional service for several orthopedic indications.…”

Provision of Palliative Care and Pain Management Services for Oncology Patients

“…29,30 The registry currently has a large collection of data sets from patients in a wide range of hospital settings, and uses benchmarking to compare the treatments of similar types of patients. These data enable practitioners to determine which 2012, the health ministry qualified the hospital as a Center of Pain Study and Treatment.…”