Difference between the ICU's

[shirleyTX]

Can anyone explain the different cases in the MICU/SICU/TICU. CCU is pretty self explanatory but I don't quite get the difference between these.

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

Niether do I - we don't have that division here - it is just ICU or post-cardiac ICU perhaps - maybe a dedicated Neuro ICU but we generally do not divide into medical and surgical.

[K O'Malley]

From my experience, the MICU takes care of pts with medical problems such as vented COPDers, pulmonary embolus, sepsis, ketoacidosis, severe electrolyte imbalances, overdoses who required vents, HIVers who were severely compromised, meningitis, bleeding esophageal varices, uncontrollable seizures, etc. to only name a few. I sure did learn a lot from my experience in the MICU.

SICU takes care of pts after major surgeries such as AAA repair, CABG, thorocotomies, craniotomies, etc. Now what TICU means I cannot say because I'm not sure what it is and my hospital didn't have one.

[BarbPick]

CCU nurses look at the monitor first then treat the patient

SICU nurses treat the patient then look at the monitor, sorry an old joke.

Medical Intersive Care are critical pateints (MI) who have things like liver failure, respiratory illness, Acute clean medical Crisis.

SICU are strictly surgical and trauma cases, They have clean rooms and dirty rooms.

CCU is strictly MI's and rhythm disturbance.

CVICU is open hearts.

Few Facilities can afford to split them though.

[BarbPick]

TICU is strictly Trauma

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I work in a large (>550 bed) hospital and we have:

SICU - surgical ICU

MICU - medical ICU

Neuro Special Care - Neuro ICU - mostly trauma head

CCU - cardiac medical patients

CVICU - open heart patients

PICU - peds ICU - they do medical, trauma/neuro and open

heart babies

Then we have my unit - the ER - and we take care of and hold all of the above!

[Elenaster]

I work in an enormous (>850 bed) teaching hospital and we have a total of 9 adult intensive care units that break down as follows:

2 MICU (medicine) - most of the types of patients listed above, including lots of MRSA and VRE, as well as a good deal of heme/onc floor crashes. Almost all of these patients are managed by the MICU team, which only cares for ICU patients.

2 SICU (surgical) - one gets a lot of the transplant patients while the other is more complicated surgical patients. One unit has the aforementioned "dirty" beds too (infected patients).

CVICU - post op CABG, valve replacment, lung surgery, etc. Tons of Swan-ganz catheters and chest tubes. Surgical cardiac unit.

NSICU - neurosurgery patients including head trauma, aneurysm clippings, crani for tumor resection, temporal lobectomy for sz disorder, CEAs, and occasionally neurology and ENT patients.

TICU - Trauma, trauma, and more trauma.

CCU - Medical cardiac patients

Burn unit - Burn patients, Stevens-Johnson syndrome

These designations are not set in stone, however. Patients go where there is a bed available, but if they need more specialized care, we frequently do "the ICU shuffle" and move patients from one ICU to the other in order to provide beds where needed. For instance, last week I had to move a surgical patient (s/p bowel rescetion) downstairs because there was a GSW to the head in the ED. We also have large pediatric and neonatal ICUs as part of the children's hospital, but some of our adult units can take peds overflow.

[shirleyTX]

Thanx for shedding light on this to all that answered.

[JennieJenRN]

I work in a top ten hospital with many ICU's as far as the adults go

NICU= neuro

TICU=thoracic

SICU=surgical

CCMU=critical care medicine

CICU=coronary

TBICU= trauma/burn

Now the childrens hospital has a whole diff. set up. So I think it all depends on where you work and how they want to seperate it.

[J_W, DNP, APRN, CNS]

We had STICU= trauma and all neuro/abdominal surgeries came..

We had TICU= Transplant ICU all solid orgn transplants and open hearts/thoracic surgeries...

We had MICU and CICU self explanatory..Medial and Coronary....

Now I work in a place that the ICU are named by the floor they are located on...such 1ICU, 2ICU, 3ICU, 4ICU and 9ICU...1ICU is intermediate, 2ICU is neuro, 3ICU is medical/coronary, 4ICU is the CV recovery, and 9ICU is the overflow unit....

[heart queen]

Ditto, for Elenaster, minus the heart transplant kids are shipped off (forgot to quote, I'm sorry)

work in an enormous (>850 bed) teaching hospital and we have a total of 9 adult intensive care units that break down as follows:

2 MICU (medicine) - most of the types of patients listed above, including lots of MRSA and VRE, as well as a good deal of heme/onc floor crashes. Almost all of these patients are managed by the MICU team, which only cares for ICU patients.

2 SICU (surgical) - one gets a lot of the transplant patients while the other is more complicated surgical patients. One unit has the aforementioned "dirty" beds too (infected patients).

CVICU - post op CABG, valve replacment, lung surgery, etc. Tons of Swan-ganz catheters and chest tubes. Surgical cardiac unit.

NSICU - neurosurgery patients including head trauma, aneurysm clippings, crani for tumor resection, temporal lobectomy for sz disorder, CEAs, and occasionally neurology and ENT patients.

TICU - Trauma, trauma, and more trauma.

CCU - Medical cardiac patients

Burn unit - Burn patients, Stevens-Johnson syndrome

These designations are not set in stone, however. Patients go where there is a bed available, but if they need more specialized care, we frequently do "the ICU shuffle" and move patients from one ICU to the other in order to provide beds where needed. For instance, last week I had to move a surgical patient (s/p bowel rescetion) downstairs because there was a GSW to the head in the ED. We also have large pediatric and neonatal ICUs as part of the children's hospital, but some of our adult units can take peds overflow