Population and Turnover in the CTICU

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

Out of curiosity, I'm wondering what the patient population and length of stay usually look like in the adult CTICU/CVICU. I've shadowed in a surgical CTICU, and it sounded like most patients were only on the unit for 1-3 days post-op; ideally, they'd extubate the day of surgery, have the patient up in a chair by the next morning, and send them off to step-down by the next night. You'd get the occasional patient on the unit for weeks with crazy complications, but for the most part the patients convalesced quite well. This is in contrast to the Medical Cardiac ICU, which had much slower turnaround; the patients were often severely chronically ill, and could end up in the MCICU for weeks.

I've been surprised in the Pediatric Cardiac ICU; even though most of our patients are surgical 'CTICU-type' open heart patients, nearly all of them are severely chronically ill (like adult medical cardiac ICU patients). Most of our kids stay in the ICU for at least a few weeks to a month after surgery, and some end up staying for several months or even up to a year--it's hard for me to imagine an adult staying in the CTICU for a year, although I could be wrong. The patient turnover sounds so different from what I've heard about adult CTICUs, and I'm curious to know if that perception is correct.

[KeepinitrealCCRN]

You are correct about CTICU/CVICU; pt turn over is very quick. MICU and CCU probably have the longest stays due to a lot of the population having chronic problems with multiple comorbidities followed by SICU in my opinion.

[Kendalld]

I can see the turn over but if your heart is there and you love it- stay with if!

[Kendalld]

-*it