ASA: Best practices to manage acute pain in surgical patients developed at pain summit

Editor's Note

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) announced on March 8 that it had joined with 14 leading medical specialty organizations to establish seven guiding principles to address the treatment of acute perioperative pain in complex surgical patients.

The new principles were developed during a second landmark pain summit hosted by ASA to build upon an original set established last year during the first pain summit. This year, the principles specifically addressed patients:

• undergoing surgery with chronic pain
• taking opioids preoperatively
• with substance abuse disorders.

The next step, says ASA president Randall M. Clark, MD, FASA, is to establish how this multi-society consortium can help institutions implement both sets of guiding principles into their practices.