PainChek is now expanding to enable best-practice pain assessment and management in hospitals around the world.

We began our journey at PainChek in 2016 with a mission to give a voice to those who cannot reliably verbalise their pain. Since then, PainChek® has grown to be the most commonly used clinical software in the Australian aged care sector, with a rapidly expanding presence across the UK, North America, Singapore, New Zealand, and other regions.

Following successful adoption in aged care, PainChek is continuing to expand in new sectors including hospitals. Our entry into this sector began with a research project in partnership with Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation and Edith Cowan University, to investigate ways of reducing or stopping the progression of frailty in hospital patients.

Today, we are continuing our expansion with new partnerships and use cases across the sector to bring best-practice pain assessment and management to hospitals worldwide.

25-42% of all hospital beds are occupied by people living with dementia. The consequences of poorly managed pain for hospitalised dementia patients include:

    • Longer hospital stay: 18 days on average
    • 3.26x increased delirium risk
    • 54% higher use of antipsychotics on average

Better post-surgical pain management in hospitals can help reduce the risk of a delirium, while accurate and rapid pain assessment can reduce the days stay in hospital and optimise therapeutic treatments.

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Bringing digital pain assessment to hospitals with InterSystems

PainChek is partnering with InterSystems, a leading global provider of data management solutions, to integrate with electronic medical record (EMR) systems—including the InterSystems TrakCare® unified healthcare information system.

    • More than one billion health records worldwide are managed using InterSystems technology
    • PainChek’s digital pain assessment app to be integrated with InterSystems’ IRIS interoperability platform.
    • Integration facilitates improved hospital workflow and medication management
    • Partnership covers PainChek® Infant and Adult technologies

“Partnering with a global leader like InterSystems accelerates our entry into new markets like the hospital sector. We know from experience in aged care how important it is to connect to EMR systems. InterSystems IRIS for Health makes that easy and scales up our capacity to connect into hospitals and, in the future, other sectors like home care that would also benefit from easy to use and reliable pain assessment.”

– Philip Daffas, PainChek CEO & Managing Director

Combining the companies’ platforms will help transform pain management in the hospital sector and beyond. Read more here.

Key benefits of PainChek® in hospitals

    • Improved quality of care: Among pain management improvements to increase the quality of care for aged care residents, an 18-month case study showed a 20% reduction in the use of benzodiazepines and antipsychotic medications.
    • Centralised data: All pain assessment data is stored securely and centrally in PainChek®’s detailed reporting suite, PainChek® Analytics.
    • Interoperability: PainChek® is fully interoperable with leading EMR and medication management systems, enabling seamless and secure data sharing.
    • Increased triage effectiveness: Accurate pain assessments performed on all patients has the potential to increase effectiveness of triage in emergency departments.
    • Improved patient pain management: Pain assessments are automatically entered into a patient’s record, making them available to clinical decision support solutions for pain management improvements.
    • Cost savings: More effective pain management could avoid the delayed release of patients or readmission, and subsequent additional costs to health systems.
    • Reduced risk: No duplication of effort or paper-handling reduces the risk of human error and inaccuracies.
    • Accessibility: A fast, objective tool empowers hospital staff to accurately and consistently monitor pain, saving time and costs.
    • Reputability: PainChek® is a validated medical device, approved for clinical use in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the EU, and Canada, with a strong, credible reputation across the industry.

PainChek’s digital pain assessment solution is already under licence in over 1,000 facilities, with more than 4,000,000 digital pain assessments conducted to date, and is trusted by thousands of nurses, carers, and clinicians worldwide.

Sources:

Germossa et al. BMC Nursing (2019) 18:40
Tsai, I. P., Jeong, S. Y. S., & Hunter, S. (2018). Pain assessment & management for older patients with dementia in hospitals: an integrative literature review. Pain Management Nursing, 19(1), 54-71.
Herr, K. (2011). Pain assessment strategies in older patients. Journal of Pain, 12(3 Suppl 1), S3–s13.
Feast AR et al. (2018) Pain & delirium in people with dementia in the acute general hospital setting. Age & Ageing 47, 841–8466-8