printable versionNew pediatric emergency facility ready to open this week
BY KRISTA CONGER
Computer games, toys and state-of-the-art examining rooms in the new pediatric emergency department, along with specialized staff, will help young patients to feel more at ease.
Emergency rooms aren't supposed to be happy places, are they? But most sick kids (and their parents) could use a little cheering up.
Beginning Dec. 1, children coming to Stanford Hospital's emergency department will be directed to a new, brightly lit and colorful space with whimsical patterns in the floor and familiar artwork on the walls. Light maple wood and lots of internal windows surrounding a central nursing station give a sense of spaciousness; curtains can be drawn in each room to provide privacy when needed.
Administrative offices behind the current emergency department were removed to make way for the new pediatric emergency department, which was built in conjunction with Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. (The two hospitals have always shared an emergency room at Stanford.) A blue river pattern in the floor will lead children and their parents from the current emergency room to a waiting room stocked with new toys and activities. A big-screen television will show cartoons and community announcements, and each of the seven exam rooms is equipped with a television and iMac computer with games, music and movies. Free wireless Internet access is also provided.
Pretty cool. But the most special thing about the facility is less visible: The pediatric specialists in emergency medicine, from physicians and nurses to "child-life specialists," who have been assembled to tend to the medical problems that afflict children from around the Bay Area. This team will staff the department during peak hours—usually from mid-afternoon until shortly after midnight.
"The buck stops with us," said Bernard Dannenberg, MD, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital's first Davies Family Endowed Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. "We have everything necessary to take care of children." Although the facility will be open 24 hours a day, children arriving during non-peak hours may be treated by non-pediatric specialists.
"Every child will go to the pediatric area, unless we are completely full or they need immediate, life-saving attention," said Dannenberg.
Monitors in every exam room are linked to the central nursing station to allow constant observation of a patient's vital signs, and the headboards are equipped with the latest in medical technology. In addition, two of the exam rooms can function as isolation rooms—providing negative air pressure to isolate children with communicable diseases.
How did this happen? Much of the money for the new pediatric emergency department came from community donations. The Stanford emergency department sees more than 10,000 children each year, and parents and physicians were frustrated by the tense and sometimes frightening environment that can occur when sick adults and kids are thrown together—a situation at odds with the carefully cultivated, child-friendly atmosphere of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
Through the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, more than 50 donors together gave $11 million to the project, which included a match by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Both the adult and children's hospitals financially contributed to the construction of the facility. Individual donors paid for the whimsical river in the floor, the iMac computers and other specialized equipment and child-friendly improvements in each room. Donors also endowed Dannenberg's position and support for other pediatric emergency department staff.
"We have listened to the community and now have a facility specifically built for and dedicated to children," said Dannenberg. "Most people who have seen the space say 'Wow. The kids will never want to go home.'"
