Henry Ford Health uses several methods to treat pain

Henry Ford Health demonstrates its commitment to pain patients by providing continuing education in pain management for its physicians and building a fellowship in pain medicine while committing to There are many, many types of individual treatment for pain.

«Our goal is to educate,» said Nabil Sibai, MD, an anesthesiologist and pain medicine physician with Henry Ford Health.

Dr. Sibai said in an interview with AMA. «We created a handbook for physicians and providers and non-physicians about responsible opioid prescriptions — how to manage them, how to monitor them and how to destroy them.»

Doctors also get feedback on their prescriptions and are shown how they compare to their colleagues.

Henry Ford Health is a member of the AMA Health System Program, which provides business solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with tools to help drive the future of medicine.

«Probably the most common reason for pain that we see—and the most common reason that opioids are prescribed—is back pain,» said Dr. I don’t know. «We have many pharmacological and non-pharmacological nonopioid options that are minimally invasive to help manage the patient’s pain.»

«In the perioperative area, we use many methods to reduce opioids, such as local anesthesia and certain infusions and medications to keep patients as comfortable as possible,» Dr. Sibai said.

Leaders at Henry Ford Health are also looking at how to use buprenorphine to manage chronic pain that requires opioid management.

Buprenorphine «in itself is an opioid that provides good analgesia with less risk factors than a full mu agonist, such as morphine or oxycodone,» said Dr. I don’t know.

In line with Henry Ford Health’s multidisciplinary approach to pain management, physicians from pain medicine, behavioral health and primary care will be trained and educated, and now serve as service ambassadors. of them and to be resources for doctors on this path, Dr. Sibai explained. .

«We have identified the champions of doctors, and they meet in groups and get proper training, and we will announce it soon after that,» he said.

Henry Ford Health is also involved with the Overdose Prevention Engagement Network, an organization dedicated to reducing the harms associated with drug use that shares education and resources to strengthen prevention, treatment and individualized recovery. Henry Ford Health worked with the network to expand access to naloxone in its three hospital emergency departments and throughout the system’s pharmacy.

The AMA believes that science, evidence, and compassion must continue to guide patient care and policy change as the nation’s opioid epidemic evolves into a dangerous and complex illicit drug abuse epidemic. Learn more at the AMA’s End the Epidemic website.

Since 2016, Dr. Sibai has been program director for one year, an accredited pain medicine fellowship offered to physicians by the Henry Ford Health Department of Anesthesiology, Pain Management and Perioperative Medicine.

«We are a multidisciplinary program, so we take some people with a background in physiatry, neurology-in addition to anesthesia,» Dr. Sibai said. «Recently, emergency medicine, family medicine and radiology have been added to the list of specialties that can end pain relationships.»

Next year, the program will be taking its first emergency medicine resident, he added.

Fellows gain experience in managing acute and chronic cancer pain, and train in a variety of clinics dedicated to treating sickle cell disease and cancer pain.

They are exposed to all types of pain treatments from the mind, body, pharmacological (including infusion therapy), complementary methods (acupuncture, yoga, massage), injections and other advanced interventions.

These may include interventions using fluoroscopy and ultrasound guidance, epidurals, joint facet injections, medial branch blocks, radiofrequency thermocoagulation, sacroiliac joint injections, muscle and joint injections, sympathetic blocks, neurolytic therapy, vertebral augmentation, spinal cord and spinal cord, neuromodulation. peripheral neuromodulation, percutaneous image-guided lumbar decompression, and trials with intrathecal pump management, according to the pain-medicine web page.

Dr. Sibai said: «In pain medicine, there are many different methods of study that they get from one pain meeting to another pain meeting,» said Dr. I don’t know. «What we’ve tried to do is provide a balanced education for our colleagues that has both medical and academic components to make sure they’re healthy.»

Fellows also provides pain assessment services at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and satellite outpatient clinics.