The Parc Taulí Pain Clinic triples its activity and reduces the waiting list for treatments from six months to a month

• March 6, 2019
• 0 comments

In 2018, the Unit's healthcare system was expanded to provide the maximum number of patients in the last year. More than 700 infiltration treatments have been carried out.

The Pain Clinic Unit of Parc Taulí has ​​managed, throughout 2018, to triple its activity and reduce the waiting list for its treatments, from six months to a maximum of one month, with the consequent benefits that this implies. for their patients. In infiltrations alone - the treatment that is mostly performed - it has gone from 240 performed in 2017 to 733 in 2018.

This improvement has been possible thanks to the expansion of the devices that was made just a year ago and that has allowed a reorganization of the Unit that is giving excellent results. This improvement also involved the creation of a specific nursing post for this Unit, the acquisition of a new ultrasound scanner and the new referral circuit from the Primary Care Centers (CAPs).

The Pain Clinic, which belongs to the Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Pain Treatment Service, aims to treat and relieve physical suffering of various origins related mainly to low back pain or back pain - in 75% of cases -, trigeminal neuralgia, headaches, post-surgical injuries and joint pain .

The treatments offered can be pharmacological or invasive, such as infiltrations, lidocaine infusions, and patch placement, for the most part. In a coordinated way, other treatments are always offered, such as physiotherapy or psychological therapy. The coordinator of the Pain Clinical Unit, Jenaro Mañero, says that in the future we also want to introduce the technique of radiofrequency (rhizolysis), as treatment that alleviates nerve pain, avoiding successive consultations and infiltrations.

Multidisciplinary team coordinated with other services

The unit, which is located in the XNUMXth Centenary building, has three doctors specializing in anesthesiology, a nurse and an auxiliary nursing care technician (TCAI), who work in coordination with professionals from other hospital services. such as Neurosurgery, Traumatology, Rehabilitation, Rheumatology, Psychiatry and Oncology, among others.

Their patients, however, are mainly derived from the specialties of Traumatology and Rheumatology, from where they also request visits to hospitalized patients (interconsultations). It is noteworthy that in the consultations of the Pain Clinic currently patients are also treated directly from the Primary Care Centers (CAPs), through the figure of the medical care leader who has been appointed to each center. With this new circuit, we also want to reduce the waiting time for the first visit with the anesthesiologist of the Pain Clinic, which is when the type of treatment to be received by the patient is determined.

With the new organization of the Pain Clinical Unit, the afternoon operating room that was used once a week at the Outpatient Surgical Center (CQA) has also been released because, with the expansion of the devices, now the treatments are they perform in the Unit itself.