Impact of a Clinical Decision Support Tool on Cancer Pain Management in Opioid-Tolerant Inpatients

Background: Pain is both common and undertreated in the hematology/oncology population despite national guidelines and a focus from The Joint Commission. Objective: Herein, we describe the features of a pain clinical decision support tool (PCDST) embedded into the electronic medical record (EMR) and report its impact on oncology inpatients at risk for uncontrolled pain. Methods: The PCDST was developed to identify patients with potentially uncontrolled pain, defined as a pain score ≥4. Clinical pharmacists were encouraged to use the tool to determine whether interventions were needed to better control pain. Pain and safety outcomes between 2 cohorts of opioid-tolerant adult inpatients presenting with severe pain were compared prior to and following the implementation of the PCDST. Results: The primary endpoint, attainment of analgesia at 24 hours from admission, was met in 10 of 30 (33.3%) patients in the preimplementation group and in 14 of 32 (43.8%) of patients in the postimplementation group (P = .78). Secondary endpoints including time to analgesia, mean pain score, frequency of pharmacy intervention, and National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline-adherent pain regimens were not found to be statistically significantly different between the 2 groups. The number of mean nursing pain assessments in the first 24 hours from admission was found to be significantly higher in the postimplementation group compared with the preimplementation group (12 vs 7.4, P < .001). Safety events were rare and not statistically different between groups. Conclusion: Overall, a modest, but statistically nonsignificant, improvement in pain outcomes was associated with patients admitted after the implementation of a pharmacist-managed electronic pain scoring tool.