CCU the same as ICU

[tsgarman, RN]

Hello

I have a friend who has an interview at a hospital this coming week. He is needing to work in an ICU for experience and the hospital he talked to has only an 8 bed CCU (critical care unit). I know that CCU can also be a coronary care unit. I work in an ICU at a bigger facilty and told him what our unit does.

Does anybody out there know if this type of CCU would be the same as an ICU?

[mattsmom81]

As you mentioned, depends on what the initials mean. It could be a Critical Care Unit and he may find all types of patients there. Some facilities call their Coronary Care Units CCU...and one will generally find cardiac patients there.

Lots of initials out there today. Some facilities refer to their telemetry units as CCU now too....so one has to check.

[BadBird, BSN, RN]

I work agency and at one hospital CCU means critical care unit at another coronary care unit, it just depends on the hospital.

[New CCU RN]

I definitely agree that it depends on the facility. Where I work there are numerous adult ICU's

CICU-Coronary ICU

CSICU-Cardiac Surgery ICU

STICU-Surgical Trauma ICU

MRICU-Medical/Resp ICU

NSICU-Neuroscience ICU

There are then stepdown units for each ICU and telemetry units for each stepdown unit.

I would think that if they call the unit "Critical Care Unit" then it would be an ICU...they probably have a mix of all different ICU patients so he will have to learn a wider range then a speciality ICU...

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Ours is a critical care unit (CCU), which cares for all kinds of critical patients as well as rule-outs (MIs mostly) and those with titratable (sp?) drips who otherwise would be med/surg pts. However, pts. with very complex needs, e.g. open-heart surgeries, are transferred to the intensive-care unit at our regional medical center in Corvallis, or to one of the big hospitals in Eugene or Portland.

[tsgarman, RN]

Thanks everyone! That is what I figured it all depends on what the hospital decides to call it. I will pass this information along to him.

[chase]

MICU- Medical Intensive Unit

SICU- Surgical Intensive Unit

CCU- Coronary Care Unit

[SnowieRN]

The hospital here has a CCU (Critical Care Unit). The only reason they call it that is b/c the hospital doesnt have specialized ICU depts, so the CCU is just a combo for all ICU.