Intensive care vs critical care

[Darth Nightingale]

Is intensive care (ICU) the same thing as critical care?

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Yes.

The thinking is that ALL hospital care anymore is intensive. When you say 'intensive', then what are we saying about care everywhere else in the hospital, that it's non-intensive?

Critical Care is supposed to be a more exact definition. Or modern. Or whatever.

My problem is that people have been conditioned that CCU stands for Coronary Care Unit, and so when you say CCU now, people will go, 'No, I was looking for the ICU . . ."

But the new and improved politically correct term is Critical Care over Intensive Care.

~faith,

Timothy.

[KatieRN04]

I recently started working in a MICU. When I when I was attending the critical care classes that the hospital offers to telemetry and ICU nurses, a respiratory therapist manager stated that he says that everyone (telemetry or ICU) considers themselves critical care because of the monitors, types of oxygen therapies short of vents, and crips that do not need titrated on the telemetery floors, but in fact, this is just advanced med surg that telemetry floors offer. Intensive care involves titrating vents, drips (multiple at one time, all needing titrated), and pts coding, on advanced life support like cvvhd and iabps, art lines and pulmonary artery catheters/swans, etc.... This is what the hospital I work for calls intensive care even thought all the units are "critical care" so to speak.