The main objective of the PAIN OUT project is to develop and to validate a system for measurement and feedback of outcome quality and support of decision making. The project will be executed in the areas of postoperative pain management which serves as an example for other fields of medicine with a high variation of care.

The project will provide the medical community with a unique, user-friendly system to improve treatment of patients with postoperative pain. We will develop and implement a web-based information system, featuring three functions:

(i)Feedback and benchmarking system which provides participating sites with continuously updating data and analyses about the quality of care they provide compared to other institutions and allows identification of ‘best clinical practice'.
(ii)Clinical Decision Support System for Post-Operative Pain, which responds to queries made by physicians for advice regarding treatment of individual patients.
(iii)A Knowledge Library which provides clinicians with easily accessible and regularly updated summaries of evidence-based recommendations tailored to specific post-operative situations.