"Ouchless" ED

From HappyNews.com (yep, happy news)

At St. Louis Children's Hospital, two pediatric emergency medicine specialists have helped foster a treatment culture in which reduction of pain and anxiety is an essential aspect of a growing number of common procedures such as fracture reduction, suturing and IV starts.

"It became clear to me that the care we provided was causing a lot of kids to cry and become upset, whether we were reducing fractures, debriding burns, drawing blood or starting IVs," says Robert "Bo" Kennedy, MD, pediatric emergency medicine physician at St. Louis Children's Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM). "The decibel level was the telling measure of the department's activity level."

Dr. Kennedy and colleague Jan Luhmann, MD, emergency medicine physician and WUSM assistant professor of pediatrics, have helped advance the increased use of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic modalities in a pediatric ED setting - including nitrous oxide, buffered lidocaine, early oral oxycodone, and "positions of comfort" - to lessen anxiety and pain during procedures.