different types of ICU

[meghan91]

what are some of the different ICU units such as MICU, SICU etc and what do they stand for and what do you see the most of in each of these?

thanks everyone!

[Juwon]

Nicu: neonatal intensive care unit

Sicu: surgical intensive care unit

Micu: medical intensive care unit

[MikeRNWI]

I work in a unit that sees both MICU and SICU types, so I know those both well...

MICU - Medical ICU, we see lots of ARDS, sepsis, respiratory distress, ESLD, overdoses just to name a few

SICU - Surgical ICU, we see lots of traumas, post surgical cases such as transplants, TAA/AAA repairs, bowel obstructions, flaps, etc

Neuro ICU - pretty obvious, neuro stuff. Strokes. brain bleeds, etc

CCU - Cardiac ICU, mostly MI's, CABG, etc

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

MICU- medical ICU- generally illnesses and condidtions

SICU- surgical ICU- mainly post-op and/ or trauma

TICU- trauma ICU

PICU- pediatric ICU- for the kids

NICU- neonatal ICU- for newborns and those under 28 days

CCU- cardiac care unit- for CHF, MIS, etc

At least these are the ones I am familiar with

[meandragonbrett]

Many different hospitals have many different terms. Frequently seen are

MICU=Medical ICU

SICU=Surgical ICU

TICU=Trauma ICU or Transplant ICU

NICU=Neuro ICU or Neonatal ICU

PICU=Pediatric ICU

CVICU=Cardiovascular ICU

CCU=Coronary Care Unit

CICU=Cardiac ICU

BICU=Burn ICU

I also know of a facility that has a Digestive Disease ICU

[kool-aide, RN]

Under the "specialty" tab click on "critical care nursing" and there's a whole forum for each of these different types of ICUs. You can find all the information you could ever want!

They're very interesting!

[glutton4punishment]

STICU: shock trauma ICU

[Biffbradford]

SNICU = Surgical Neuro

TTICU = Thoracic Transplant

[murphyle, BSN, RN]

CV-SICU: cardiovascular surgical (post-op hearts: CABG, valves, heart and heart-lung en bloc transplants, etc...)

[MommyandRN]

glutton4punishment said:

STICU: shock trauma ICU

Never heard that version! Around me, STICU is surgical/trauma.

[glutton4punishment]

MommyandRN said:

Never heard that version! Around me, STICU is surgical/trauma.

I had never heard of it either. A nurse I work with worked there in a large hospital in the Houston medical center.

Oh what gruesome things she has seen....

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

there's 2 ways of deliniating critical care beds , the UK system which looks at dependency / number of organ systems requiring support / invasiveness of ventilation

outside the 2000 bed teaching hospitals you'll generally find that a UK hospital has one ICU (level 3 critical care), one or two High dependency units (level 2 critical care) and then a number of HDU (l2)/ close observation /Level 1 beds either in specific level 1 areas ( e.g. CCU, extended recovery , acute respiratory (NIV) ) or attached to specific specialities - we'll have 2 up to level 2 beds when staffing and procedures are sorted as well as 32 'level 0 ' beds on the tertiary unit i work on...

or the US system which sometimes calls all critical care beds 'ICU' but then has a varietyof acuties present on the unit