what are the different kinds of floors?

[tryingtobecome]

I am still not a nursing student so I really don't know. Hope to be one in the next year or so. Can someone explain to me the different departments I hear people talking about telemetry and med surg and all other different ones. Can someone tell me what they are and what kind of work is done? What types of patients? Thanks

[medicrnohio, RN]

I can only explain the floors/units that I have worked.

Telemetry - This can be a catch all type of floor. You would see a variety of things here. On this floor, most patients require continuous cardiac monitoring with a portable telemetry unit. When I worked on this type of floor we saw patients with a variety of diagnoses....MI, rule out MI, CVA, pancreatitis, s/p cardiac cath w/o intervention, HTN, etc. I had a great experience on this floor and learned a lot.

Home Health - In home health you provide care to one patient at a time and often their families. This type of nursing requires a lot of teaching patients and families, wound care, IV's, etc.

ICU - There are many different kinds of ICU - medical, surgical, cardiac, neuro, etc. These units provide care to very sick patients who may require continuous close monitoring, multiple medications, ventilators, continuous dialysis, and other interventions as needed.

That is just a very brief overview of the different units I have experienced.

[TiggerBelly]

From my experience, Tele is geared towards patients that need heart monitoring constantly, but are not sick enough to be in ICU. Thats where we send alot of our chest pains when they come in through the ER.

Med/Surg units often have a high geriatric population and are geared towards "sick" patients (think cancer, Altered Mental Status, GI bleeds, UTIs, pancreatitis stuff like that). Those types of floors have patients with various diagnoses.

[Katnip, RN]

There are so many.

Med-surg is a pretty generic floor with all types of illnesses and injuries. They are usually pretty sick or injured, but don't require cardiac monitoring. Sometimes med-surg units are divided into orthopedics, renal, etc.

Telemetry/IMCU/Transitional/Stepdown requires constant cardiac monitoring, sometimes portable, sometimes they're hooked to a fixed unit. They aren't as sick as in ICU.

ICU are for the very sick and usually one nurse has only two patients, sometimes it's one-on-one. Sometimes you'll see PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit), NICU (Neonatal) ,SICU (Surgical) or MICU (Medical), CCU (Coronary Care Unit)

Pediatric units are like a med-surg for children, usually but not always under 18.

Labor and Delivery/Post-Partum are for women who are having babies, and after delivery. There's a nursery attached also for the babies.

Oncology units are for those with cancer. Sometimes, especially in smaller hospitals, these can be lumped in with med-surg.

Psychiatric units are for people who have acute (sudden, usually short stay) mental health problems.

ED/ER is often divided into adult, pediatric and urgent care, which theoretically gets people with minor illness/injury and gets them out faster.

Perianesthesia includes pre-operative areas, the operating room, and recovery, more commonly called PACU (Post-anesthesia unit)

Those are some of the basics. Larger hospitals and teaching (hospitals where doctors learn) hospitals usually have units divided even further into sub-categories.