Intensive care

From NursingWiki

Intensive care is also known as critical care...

The key features of an intensive care unit are:

• increased patient complexity
• increased patient severity of illness
• use of continous monitoring technology
• use a vasoactive drips
• mechanical ventilation
• higher nurse patient ratios

Different hospitals have different standards on what patients "qualify" to be in intensive care. These standards are impacted by third party payors, physician preference and regional variations in practice.

Around 90% of patients will stay in intensive care for less than 48 hours. The other 10% of patients will stay longer and consume most of the resources. Some hospitals have more than one intensive care unit, divided by specialty: cardiac care, medical care, surgical care, neurological care, pediatric care, neonatal care etc...

see also

• progressive care
• intermediate care
• cardiac monitoring

External links

see the American Association of Critical Care Nurses web page for up to date information on Critical Care Nursing:

• http://www.aacn.org

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