How do I figure out if a area is a critical care area?

[qt2168]

Where do I figure out if an area is considered a critical care area? Like PACU/recovery, or the ER. Are those considered a critical area? thanks!

[meandragonbrett]

Yes, I consider ED and Recovery room a critical care area. Those patients are sick and jump over the edge at any moment. ER RNs deal with drips, ventilators, airway emergencies, chest tubes, bedside procedures, codes, etc. PACU RNs deal with airway emergencies, waking patients up, extubating/pulling LMAs, sometimes they have drips too. PACU is the place that ICU overflow will go to when the ED can't hold them any longer.

In short...yes, they are critical care...but if you're asking for purposes of CRNA school, you need to work in an ICU (a few schools will accept ED).

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

if the patient will wear a heart monitor or if there is a possibility of the patient getting a narcotic or cardiac drip. Other factors are involved, but those are the short and sweet ways I look at it.

[meandragonbrett]

if the patient will wear a heart monitor or if there is a possibility of the patient getting a narcotic or cardiac drip. Other factors are involved, but those are the short and sweet ways I look at it.

Telemetry is not critical care. Patients receive narcotics in the office and on medsurg and those two areas are not critical care.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

There are so many different names used for nursing units that it's hard to determine exactly what is what.

IMHO, "Critical Care" areas are primarily characterized by the fact that the majority of the patients are highly dependent on nursing interventions. This can be subdivided into the type of dependence - physiologic or psychosocial. For instance, there are some psych units that are definitely 'critical care' because of the instability of the patients they care for, but not considered CC units. The technology that used to define CC units (vents, EKG monitors, Hemodynamic monitors, pulse ox, etc) is now found all over the place, including LTAC facilities.

Life-sustaining Nursing interventions (limited to CC units) include acute mechanical ventilation and management of unstable hemodynamics &/or tissue perfusion - drugs or mechanical (IABP, VADs, etc). These days, if airway or hemodynamics and ventilation become somwhat stable, the patient is moved into an IMCU or step-down of some sort. I think that some nursing interventions continue to be limited to CC units (e.g., shooting cardiac outputs) but that's changing too.

[XingtheBBB, BSN, RN]

I'm wondering if you're asking because you want to find a critical care area that interests you or because you're looking to meet critical care requirements for a grad school program? Answers would be different then.