St. Louis Children’s Hospital is staffed exclusively by Washington University faculty physicians and provides a full range of services and access to world-class care. Recognized as one of the country’s top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, it is the region’s only children’s hospital ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties.
As a result, our Emergency Department has a very large catchment area. To facilitate safe and timely patient-care and transfer all transfer-calls and consults from community physicians and hospitals are triaged by specially trained nurses at Children’s Direct. They accept lower-acuity patients to the ER, coordinate our transport team, facilitate communication between specialty and community physicians, and expedite physician-to-physician communication for the higher-acuity emergencies.
Patients who are treated for serious burns, wounds, abscesses, etc. are referred to our Pediatric Acute Wound Service (PAWS). With PAWS, children who do not necessarily need to be hospitalized can have their wound issues addressed as needed as an outpatient.The PAWS team works to evaluate each child’s needs, including areas such as nutrition, child life services, psychological services, occupational/physical therapy, and pain management, to coordinate a specialized treatment plan.