American Pain Society Announces Recipients of Clinical Centers of Excellence
in Pain Management Awards
Six Awardees Honored for Achievement in Multidisciplinary Pain Care Include
Specialty Programs in Occupational Health and Pediatrics
GLENVIEW, Ill., April 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Pain Society (APS),
http://www.ampainsoc.org, today announced the recipients of its second annual
Clinical Centers of Excellence in Pain Management Awards recognizing the
nation's outstanding pain care centers. Six multidisciplinary pain programs
were recognized. They are:
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Richard Barrett Pain Management
Center, Lebanon, NH
Pediatric Pain Management Center at Oregon Health & Science University,
Portland
Productive Rehabilitation Institute of Dallas for Ergonomics (PRIDE)
Stanford Pain Center, Palo Alto
University of Minnesota Fairview Pain and Palliative Care Center,
Minneapolis
UW Health Pain Care Services, Madison, Wis.
Forty-nine applications were judged by a panel of prominent pain
management experts. APS established the program in 2006 to recognize
progressive teams of health professionals who address critical, sometimes
unmet, needs in pain management within their communities. Multidisciplinary
programs in the U.S. offering direct patient care in pain management are
eligible to apply. Award recipients will be honored at a gala on May 8 at the
APS Annual Scientific Conference in Tampa.
"In our second year, the Clinical Centers Excellence Awards drew
applicants from every part of the country with excellent performance in
relieving suffering and restoring everyday function to those who lives are
burdened with persistent pain," said APS President Judith Paice, Ph.D., R.N.,
F.A.A.N., director, cancer pain program, Northwestern University Feinberg
School of Medicine. "We were impressed by the quality of the submitted
programs. As a pain care professional, I'm deeply gratified to see such
outstanding outcomes being achieved by multidisciplinary pain care teams
nationwide."
Paice added that the Clinical Centers of Excellence Awards also support
the ongoing advocacy mission of APS for multidisciplinary pain care. "The
awards honor pain care teams for delivering optimal and exemplary care for
those with myriad chronic-pain disorders, post-surgical pain, trauma-induced
pain and pain from cancer and other life-threatening conditions," Paice added.
A recurring quality of leading pain programs, according to Paice, is
success in helping patients enhance overall function and quality of life.
"Combining cognitive-behavioral and physical therapies with medications and
other approaches is the major advantage of the multidisciplinary approach. We
treat the whole person, not just the pain. The award recipients and other
centers are proving every day that integrated, multidisciplinary pain care
yields the best long-term outcomes -- medically, psychologically and
socially," she said.
Among the achievements of CCOE recipients recognized by APS, include:
-- Creation and maintenance of a huge pain patient data base, derived from
client surveys, which allows doctors to follow the progress of
individual patients or groups over time. The database was instrumental
in landing a $10 million grant to build a palliative care facility.
(Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center)
-- A strong mix of medical and behavioral care and physical rehabilitation
services to help children with chronic pain go back to school and
resume their lives. (Oregon Health & Science University)
-- The nation's leading pain program focused on occupation health with an
85-90 percent success rate from aggressive physical rehabilitation that
enables patients to go back to work. (PRIDE)
-- An strong emphasis on translational research in which outcomes achieved
in treating the most challenging pain patients help faculty advance
scientific knowledge about pain and develop new research initiatives,
(Stanford Pain Center)
-- An innovative medication management program that helps patients reduce
their doses of pain medications by resolving anxiety and fears about
lowering medication use. (Fairview Pain and Palliative Care Center)
-- An aggressive continuous improvement and quality management program
that constantly measures patient satisfaction, safety and outcomes to
provide high quality care based on science and compassion. (UW Health)
About the American Pain Society
Based in Glenview, Ill., the American Pain Society (APS) is a
multidisciplinary community that brings together a diverse group of
scientists, clinicians and other professionals to increase the knowledge of
pain and transform public policy and clinical practice to reduce pain-related
suffering. APS was founded in 1978 with 510 charter members. From the
outset, the group was conceived as a multidisciplinary organization. APS has
enjoyed solid growth since its early days and today has approximately 3,200
members. The Board of Directors includes physicians, nurses, psychologists,
basic scientists, pharmacists, policy analysts and others.
Program Supporters
The Clinical Centers of Excellence in Pain Management program is made
possible with the generous support of Endo Pharmaceuticals, Abbott
Laboratories, Cephalon, King Pharmaceuticals, Merck and Pfizer.
SOURCE American Pain Society
Chuck Weber, +1-847-705-1802, cpweber@weberpr.com, for American Pain Society
