Every Child Has Opportunities ®

Radio ECHO® Programming

Reduces In-Patient Pediatric Pain Scores

Richard Taylor M.Ed., Radio ECHO Coordinator Cindi LaPorte RN, Nurse Manager Kathleen

Webster MD, Director PCCU

Tune in to Radio ECHO® TV channel 54Your get-away “TROPICAL OASIS” to healing, fun and learning!!

Historically, the

Ronald McDonald Children’s Hospital

never had a tool to assess program

effectiveness in reducing Pediatric patients’

pain levels.

Radio ECHO® is an in-house, fully operational, radio station providing patients, families and staff with many genres of music, event information, entertainment, as well as, a source for academic instruction within pediatric areas of the health system.

Studies in hospitals, located in the United Kingdom, show that music does make a difference

in the healing process.

Interactive game shows aired on Radio ECHO ®, are used to improve self reported VAS pain scores in pediatric patients.

Goal

Reduce the pre-show pain scores in pediatric inpatients by 2- 4 points during the playing of these games.

Collaborated with Pediatric Critical Care Quality Improvement team, regarding the study of Radio ECHO’S® programming for the care of patients.

Designed visually interactive games to broadcast on in-patient’s televisions.

Created the tool to record and measure pediatric in-patient’s pain level before and after playing the games.

solutions

Reevaluated the games and even redesigned some to improve upon the educational value.

Designed and implemented a survey tool specific to the VAS pain scale.

solutions (cont.)

solutions (cont.)

Presentation of project and goal to the PICU Medical Director, and nurse manager to enlist support

and cooperation.

Five month surveillance of hospitalized in-patient Pediatric patients and in PICU patients to establish a baseline (July – November 2006).

Pain scores are recorded before and after each game, and the differences for all surveys are averaged.

118 Pediatric In-patients Surveyed.

20 weeks of data collected.

Average number of games played per week, 2 .

results

Cha

nge

in V

AS

Weekly Average Change in Visual Analog Scale ResultsPediatric Patients Undergoing Pre-Test Educational Games

Week

UCL = 0.7

Mean = -1.2

LCL = -3.0

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4 Reduction in pain levels are reflected by scoring below zero.

Next Steps

Present data to PCCU QI Team.

Include total number of patients surveyed into the formula for the chart.

Indicate # of previous players verses new players with pain issues.

Evaluate content of games that reduced pain with the intention of mirroring similar content with new

games.

Evaluate the addition of more patient interaction with relationship to reduction of pain.

Next Steps (cont. )