Opioid use and walking among patients with chronic low back pain.

This study examined the effect of a walking intervention on step counts among patients with chronic back pain who report opioid use. Data were collected as part of a randomized trial to reduce back-pain-related disability. Participants (n = 118 usual care, 111 intervention) were Veterans receiving care within one healthcare system. Step counts were collected at baseline, 6 mo, and 12 mo via an uploading pedometer. Self-reported opioid use was collected by survey. More than 40% (n = 99) of participants reported opioid use at baseline. After adjustment, the predicted mean step count for baseline opioid users assigned to the intervention increased by more than 1,200 steps compared with a reduction of nearly 400 steps for those assigned to usual care (between-group difference = 1,625 steps, p = 0.004). Among nonopioid users, there was no change for those in the intervention (-16 steps) and an increase of about 660 steps for those assigned to usual care (between-group difference = 683 steps, p = 0.17). These data show that patients taking opioids may engage in walking to help manage their back pain. This finding emphasizes the importance of encouraging the use of alternative pain management strategies for these patients.

Resident workload, pager communications, and quality of care.

With the recent regulations limiting resident work hours, it has become more important to understand how residents spend their time. The volume and content of the pages they receive provide a valuable source of information that give insight into their workload and help identify inefficiencies in hospital communication. We hypothesized that above a certain workload threshold, paging data would suggest breakdowns in communication and implications for quality of care. All pages sent to six general surgery interns at the University of Michigan over the course of one academic year (7/1/2008-6/30/2009) were retrospectively categorized by sender type, message type, message modifier, and message quality. Census, discharge, and admission information for each intern service were also collected, and intern duties were further analyzed with respect to schedule. "On-call" days were defined as days on which the intern bore responsibility for care of all admitted floor patients. The interns received a total of 9,843 pages during the study period. During on-call shifts, each intern was paged an average of 57 ± 3 times, and those on non-call shifts received an average of 12 ± 3 pages. Floor/intensive care unit (ICU) nurses represented 32% of the page volume received by interns. Interestingly, as patient volume increased, there was a decrease in the number of pages received per patient. By contrast, at higher patient volumes, there was a trend toward an increasing percentage of urgent pages per patient. At high intern workloads, our data suggest no major communication breakdowns but reveal the potential for inferior quality of care.