A Comprehensive Care Plan for Pediatric Patients With Vaso-Occlusive Crises

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the most common inherited blood disorder affecting 80,000 to 90,000 individuals in the United States.\[10\] There are 13,000 hospital admissions for a sickle cell crises, costing $448 million dollars annually.\[10\] In our hospital, the sickle cell population is known to have some of the longest length of stays. Between October 2014 and September 2015, there were 89 admissions for a vaso-occlusive crisis with an average length of stay of 6 days and 12 admissions greater than 10 days and 5 admissions greater than 20 days. We propose to evaluate the feasibility of the new CPP in a pilot randomized control trial to determine if pain and length of stay can be reduced in patients with sickle cell disease. We also propose to evaluate a sleep regimen to determine if this can reduce the hospital stay and help with pain. We hypothesize increased physical activity and proper sleep, as implemented in the CPP, are correlated with decreased hospital length of stay and decreased pain. Additionally, we believe that creating a standardized nighttime environment at the hospital will help the children stay in their circadian rhythm thus promoting improved sleep and a more effective inpatient disease management.