At St Luke's Hospital in North Carolina, the emergency department recently added these carts, and while they all contain essential equipment such as IV tubing, needles and oxygen masks to accommodate specific weights and sizes of young patients, they are divided into age-specific drawers, delineated by a certain color.

"In any emergency, the ABC's must be addressed immediately," says Lori Oliver, RN, nurse manager of St. Luke's Hospital Emergency Department. "The sooner basic and advanced life support is initiated, the greater the child's chance for complete recovery. Knowledge and skills required at the time of a pediatric emergency are not those that the emergency care provider uses on a daily basis, so this new pediatric crash cart is crucial."
Tip of the Iceberg
There are a plethora of companies that have products designed for children, whether it's a stethoscope shaped like an elephant or a medical cabinet with pictures of dolphins on it.

With a motto of "taking the scare out of healthcare" Minn.-based PediaPals offers a number of serious medical equipment selections for a child-friendly world. They have stethoscope covers in the shapes of animals and the Jamaal Giraffe reflex hammer, designed to be non-threatening for kids, but not at the expense of functionality. There's also the Benjamin Bear blood pressure kit.

In addition to the medical instruments, the company, which merged with Zoo Pals a few years ago, now offers exam tables shaped as things such as hippos, dinosaurs and turtles, and provides decals and wall decorations to create an entire child-friendly atmosphere.

Ann Kochsiek came up with the idea for the animal tables in 1988, after her 4-year-old son Ry was diagnosed with cancer.

"One day while he was getting a blood transfusion, I decided the tables for the spinal tap room had to be something better than this cold sterile environment," she says. "We would often times pretend we were at a zoo and the table was an animal and that's how we would get him on to the table for the spinal taps."

Kochsiek designed a prototype, and since the company's founding, thousands of tables have been sold around the world.

"Kids walk into the room and see the smiling face and they're put at ease," she says. "It's all distraction. Doctors say they love it and it's working and the exam is easier."

Clinton Industries Inc. offers a series of photo-driven tables that feature such designs as "Wild West," "Safari" and "Cosmos." The company also offers cabinets, scales and other office equipment with child-friendly themes such as "Space," "The Ocean" and "The Rain Forest."

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