Reflective practice: providing safe quality patient-centered pain management

Abstract

Effective pain management continues to baffle clinicians in spite of numerous evidence-based guidelines and standards, focused clinical interventions and standardized assessments. Reflective practice is a mindful approach to practice that grounds clinicians in the moment with the individual patient to ask questions and then to listen to the patient's message about their pain experience. Reflective practice helps meld theoretical knowledge with lessons from experience to rethink mechanistic responses to patient pain. The subjective nature of pain means no two patients have the same experience, and, evidence based best practices are to be applied within the patient's preferences and context. The paper uses a case study to illustrate how to apply reflective practice to integrate the interprofessional quality and safety competencies to provide patient-centered pain management. Applying reflective questions throughout the care experience by all members of the healthcare team provides a mindful approach that focuses care on the individual patient.