ccu, icu, acute care

[charlies]

Hi,

what is the difference between CCU, ICU, and acute care?

also, what is the best way path to getting onto a trauma team, like the ones you see on 'critical hour' for example.

thanks

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

trauma team - from a nursing point of view Emergency Dept or Flight/PHRN

CCU - is Cardiac Care

Intensive care is patients who require invasive ventilation or multi organ system support ( right pond defintion, the left pond may define it differently)

Acute care - depends on the unit in question is this a level 1 (increased nursing input and monitoring) / Level 2 critical care (NIV, single organ system support, or complex extra nursign input) or is this just ordinary ward / floor ?

[oMerMero]

Acute care typically means inpatient hospitalization

[avery]

I think this varies by hospital. The CCU I work in is an ICU. We always get the patients who have an MI who need to come to the ICU. We also have lot of swans and balloon pumps.

On the other hand, lots of people are fixed in the cath lab and so we also have a lot of resp failure, shock and even some trauma overflow.

Avery