Timely pain management in the emergency department.

Background: Delivering timely pain relief remains a challenge for most emergency departments.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a policy aimed at delivering analgesics within 30 min to patients presenting to an emergency department with severe pain.

Methods: Subjects were aged ≥19 years, had a principal diagnosis of renal colic, hip fracture, or sickle cell disease, reported a pain score ≥8 on a scale of 0 to 10 at triage, and continued to report a score in this range until receiving analgesia.