Multimodal Perioperative Pain Management for Children with Medical Complexity.

Children with medical complexity (CMC) experience poor perioperative pain outcomes. To improve their pain assessments and treatment, CMC require multidisciplinary pain management across the perioperative period. This includes engaging CMC and/or their caregivers in pain assessments, attempting to mitigate pain issues preoperatively, and developing treatment plans based on children's unique histories and the types of pain anticipated by the specific surgery. Multimodal analgesia is the gold standard for perioperative pain management, and providers should consider nonpharmacologic methods and analgesics/anesthetics when developing pain treatment plans. Pain treatment plans should be continuously adjusted based on the child's condition.