How big is your "unit"?

[BiologyNerd]

I was wondering how big your NICU is.

The NICU supports a 17-bed intensive care unit and a 13-bed intermediate care unit (both with private and semi-private rooms.) A neonatal transport team is on call 24 hours a day to transport premature and/or sick babies from area hospitals to our NICU.

^ That is the NICU I hope to work for in like 4 years (haha). Its a level 3.

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

Legally, 58 beds total...

In reality, between our main unit, 12-bed stepdown, 6-bed TN, and 4-bed satellite, our census can run anywhere from 68-80.

[BiologyNerd]

Thats all for the NICU? Holy crud... thats awesome. You must work for a HUGE hospital.

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

Yeah, somebody wasn't thinking ahead when they decided to build our new unit 3 years ago.

My last unit was 34 beds, ADC 22-28, and it was much easier to primary patients, interact with staff, and be aware of what was going on around you...

[BiologyNerd]

Well I guess so....thats a huge difference. I thought that NICU was big...but I guess not?

[preemieRNkate, RN]

Technically, we are a 40 bed unit. We don't have a separate level II, and our rooms are not arranged by acuity. You could have a FT chorio next to a 24 weeker on HFOV. In our new unit, projected to open in 2009, will be set up into pods or private rooms (not sure which yet). We slowed down since the summer/early fall when our census was more like 45-50. We were practically tripping over each other! We now have about 30 something babies. We do our own transports (no separate team, a staff nurse is assigned to transport each shift to go out with the NP, RT and EMS).

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

What Steve said, plus we're taking over the entire floor that our stepdown currently occupies. That's another 20 beds, so they say. They don't know yet whether they're going to keep it as private rooms, like it is now, or bust down the walls for an open POD layout like our main NICU. The problem is it's in the "old" building, so it's hard to figure out how they'll outfit it for the really sick kids, but they're saying they don't want to completely divide the unit into ICU and subacute.

[acerila]

over a 100 (less then half of those are level 3 though)

[HighCensus]

I think we are still considered a 65 bed unit...although it should be changing as we have expanded. We have 64 bed spaces (8 bed spaces in 8 pods), 5 private rooms, a ten bed "stepdown" unit, and a ten bed "micro-preemie" area. Our census has been 80+ for a while now. We are a level III with HFOV, NO, ECMO, and surgical services. We pretty much do it all. Lots of variety.

[littleneoRN]

We have 100 total beds for Level II and Level III. We never go over our census within our units, period, although sometimes we manage a few of the older chronic kids on the PICU stepdown unit if we're overfilling.

[NebraskaRN]

We are technically a 52 bed unit. Although we frequently go over that. We have 5 rooms that have 3 pods for the ICU and 2 rooms 1 with 9 beds and the other with 10 beds for intermediate. Also we have a room that can house to patients of intermediate or one really sick one-on-one, or two-on-one patient. We are suppose to be getting a new unit within the next 5 years in a totally new building built for the childrens hospital part of the hospital, but we will see when it really happens. When we get the new unit we are suppose to have a 75 to 100 bed unit with more space.

[nurserynurse55]

Hello. I also work in a big unit. We have 36 NICU beds, 40 something special care nursery beds and 12 observation beds. We are busy too!!!!!!! The hospital is only women's health, so pretty much an OB-GYN hospital.