• Emma Newton-Brown, Les Fitzgerald, and Biswadev Mitra.
• Emergency and Trauma Centre, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Electronic address: emmanb70@hotmail.com.
• Australas Emerg Nurs J. 2014 Nov 1;17(4):176-83.

BackgroundThe use of NBs as a mode of analgesia for #NOF in the ED is not common practice despite the reported clinical benefits of quicker onset of pain relief, decreased use of additional analgesia and decreased amounts of analgesia required when more than one mode of analgesia is prescribed.AimThis study aims to test the hypothesis that the implementation of educational and awareness strategies increases knowledge, and implementation of the evidence based use of nerve blocks NB's, as a mode of analgesia for elderly patients with a fractured neck of femur (#NOF) in the Emergency Department (ED).MethodsA retrospective clinical audit of medical records using explicit chart review pre and post implementation.ResultsImplementation of educational and awareness strategies on pain management to clinical staff in the ED resulted in a significant increase in the administration of NBs, use of multimodal analgesia, and a reduction in average milligrams of morphine administrated to elderly patients with #NOF.ConclusionsThe number of older people with #NOF presenting to the ED in Australia is increasing and historically, pain management in this group of patients could be improved. This study demonstrated that an audit, intervention and re-audit design that focused on the implementation of educational and promotional strategies informed by evidence on current and best practice standards were successful in improving delivery of analgesia to elderly patients with #NOF in the ED.Copyright © 2014 College of Emergency Nursing Australasia Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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