Audio/Visual Interactive System Unveiled at Children’s Mercy Kansas City Burn Clinic

An audio/visual projection system is fostering an immersive, positive distraction for children receiving treatment at the new Children’s Mercy Kansas City Burn Clinic in Missouri. Patients pick the lighting (rainbow or combinations of green, teal, pink, orange and purple); music (piano, guitar, chimes, ukulele or violin) and animations (owls, eagles, hummingbirds, macaws or Lorikeet parrots) to set the environment.

The system was conceptualized by BSA LifeStructures and realized by Dimensional Innovations.

“Blank, white walls come to life,” said Daniel Marx, MHSA, MSN, R.N., CPN, nurse manager of the Burn Specialty Team and Burn Clinic. “The whole idea is to provide distraction and decrease the fear, anxiety, stress and pain patients may experience during burn treatments. It can help to decrease or eliminate the amount of narcotic/controlled medications we have to give.

“Pain is unavoidable with burns, but with distraction technology, instead of patients focusing on a caregiver coming at them with a pair of scissors and thinking ‘this is going to hurt!’ we now have all of these other options to draw their attention away from the treatment procedure,” Marx added.

For example, especially with younger patients, the caregiver can ask the patient to count the number of birds they see or what color they like best.

“It’s an immersive environment that follows the patient from room to room and even in the hallways,” Marx added.