med surge vs ICU

[ffliper27]

I'm fairly new in nursing. Can someone highlight the main differences between working on a regular med surge floor and working ICU? my basic understanding of ICU is that that's where patients go when their condiition deteriorates. But would liike to know the overall difference in these 2 areas....also, is ICU considered to be floor nursing? or is med/surge the only type of floor nursing?

thanks

[alibee]

For our hospital, it is dependent on the level of monitoring that they need. I work on a med-surg floor, and while we do get some sick people up there, they can be on our floor because the physicians have determined that they only need q4-12 hour monitoring (vital signs, blood sugars, neurovascular checks, respiratory treatments, etc). If a patient needs more frequent monitoring, say every two hour vitals, assessments, pulse checks, or they have drips other than heparin/protonix, then they'll go to a step-down unit, where they are put onto a monitor (our step down maxes out at 3 patients). If they need one hour checks, need an A-line/vent/multitude of simultaneous meds, etc, they go to a crit care unit.

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

Previous posters gave good answers. A septic or DKA pt shouldn't be on med surg floros. but it happens. along with your 5 other patients. You will have pts with q1 orders . Be it blood sugars or others. Pts who the providers want to be monitored in med surg until they are already ICU pts in med surg waiting for a bed. Any pt who needs to be intubated won't be in med surg, or on pressors, or other drips of that sort ( in med surg you will get heparin, lasix, insulin drips, sometimes cardizem and others if it is also a tele floor). The patients on a med surg floor SHOULD be stable.

[nursejulia07]

Hi Anoetos.

The hospital I work at is working on exclusion criteria for appropriateness of admitting to Med surg vs ICU. Where can I find an example of a baroque algorithm?

[FlyingButterfly]

Thx for your reply...AND, nurses on med-surge do NOT do basic procedures....To be able to work/survive on medicine you need to be great critical thinker and superb on time management....You need to know about all disease process...In a nutshell, before working on ICU, you need to learn all above on medicine unit.