Digital health and telemedicine for perioperative pain management in patients with chronic pain

Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2026 May 5. doi: 10.1097/ACO.0000000000001664. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Patients with chronic pain face elevated risks of inadequate postoperative analgesia, prolonged opioid use, and chronic postsurgical pain. Digital health technologies have expanded rapidly into perioperative care, yet their implications for chronic pain populations and for health equity remain insufficiently examined. This review synthesises recent evidence on digital health interventions for perioperative pain management while critically appraising how these technologies engage with, or exclude, people living with chronic pain.

RECENT FINDINGS: Five categories of digital intervention are identifiable, ranging from transitional pain services delivered via telehealth that actively target high-risk patients to general remote monitoring platforms that exclude chronic pain nuances and systematically marginalise digitally disadvantaged populations. Multicomponent platforms combining education, monitoring, and communication produce larger effect sizes than single-component interventions, yet most studies omit psychological dimensions and do not stratify for baseline chronic pain.

SUMMARY: Digital perioperative interventions risk reinforcing structural inequities unless guided by precision biopsychosocial models, multidimensional outcome measurement, equity-informed design, and hybrid care preserving in-person contact for those who need it most. Future trials must adopt core outcome sets measuring functional recovery, psychological distress, and chronic postsurgical pain transition.

PMID:42228523 | DOI:10.1097/ACO.0000000000001664