Exploring the impact of Acute Pain Teams (APTs) on patient outcomes using routine data: can it be done?

Acute Pain Teams (APTs) in every hospital performing surgery have been advocated to improve the management of post-operative pain. Poor postoperative analgesia is a perennial problem that may result in complications such as chest infection and pulmonary embolus which may have an impact on outcomes such as mortality and length of stay. This paper considers the feasibility of using routine data to explore the impact of APTs on patient outcomes, using as an illustrative example a study which investigated relationships between the introduction of APTs and post-operative length of stay and in-patient post-operative mortality.