Institutional commitment to improved pain management: Sustaining the effort

Greater attention to the problem of pain has led to development of clinical practice guidelines and subsequent efforts to implement these principles into practice. Efforts focused on increasing institutional commitment to pain management have often been cited as more successful than those aimed only at individual clinicians. This paper presents follow up data from two such programs. The first project evaluated the efforts of 18 institutions who had implemented a Pain Resource Nurse (PRN) training program. The second project presented provides data from 30 individuals from 21 institutions who participated in the Institutional Commitment (IC) to Pain Management project. Results of the surveys provide insight as to the benefits and barriers to implementing such programs and the efforts needed to sustain these programs.