Worth Repeating: PCA by Proxy Event Suggests Reassessment of Practices That May Have Fallen by the Wayside

摘要

Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) allows patients to manage their own pain by self-administering more frequent but smaller doses of an opioid. This mode of pain control requires several safety strategies, including careful patient selection and patient, family, and staff education to avoid PCA by proxy-a term used to describe conditions under which someone other than the patient administers one or more doses of an opioid to the patient using the PCA device. A key safety feature of PCA is that the device is intended for patient use; a sedated patient will not press the PCA button to deliver more opioid.