Remodelling/construction while unit is open

Yikes, what a nightmare. Our critical care unit has 5 "pods", 4 on the third floor, the 5th on the 4th floor. each pod has 8 beds. We have torn out and replaced carpeting in the nurses station, stripped and re-waxed/varnished what ever they do to the floors, and changed out bedside monitoring equipment a couple of times. It is a hassle. Basically what we do is the patient shuffle and will close a pod at a time to do what is needed in that pod. When done, we will open that pod, admit to it, transfer pt's from another pod, etc and start working on the next pod as soon as possible. Confusing-yes, pain in the keister-yes, is it possible-yes. It's just important that everyone is flexible....

how much remodeling are they going to do? It takes a lot of coordination and communication between the crew, director, charge nurse and staff.

Yes, we did it and survived. We are an open 18 bed SICU and we shut 6 beds down at a time and "borrowed" 6 rooms from the MICU. It was extremely noisy, but patients and families were actually very accomodating, since we were improving services. The tough thing was the supply charging for the beds that were in MICU--we had to take our own equipment and supplies and we couldn't bum anything off of their carts. And Pharmacy and Central Supply didn't really know where to send anything because the patients were still listed as SICU but were physically located in MICU. I do suggest that before any remodeling starts that a bedside NURSE group sit down with the designers and help administration approve the plans. They may have had our best interest in mind, but when our first 6 bed phase was done--there were so many changes that needed to be made that it extended total construction time by 3 months. For example, we had to use our 3 foot long yardsticks that we use to level transducers to reach the back wall to reach the code button, there were only 4 electrical plugs per bed and they were on the floor (you know, behind the ventilator...) and stuff like that. I cannot believe our manager approved the original plans! Any bedside nurse would have picked up these problems and saved our unit a TON of cash!

Remember to keep your immunosuppressed pts as far from the construction as possible. Aspergilosis is common in construction debris. Good Luck!

you can survive!! We have a 20 bed unit 5 down at a time. The only problem is when you are on the other side of the 5. When the lights went out last summer I was on the other side on the 6 floor and boy was it hot!!!! :angryfire

Uh, that`s nightmare. Maybe is best for you to take days off or something like that.

Last year, our ICU with 12 beds is moved in three op. rooms. Two ICU beds in one op. room. So we worked with 6 beds for almost 15 weeks. Only 2 electrical plugs per bed, one O2 and air plug per bed, one vacuum plug per bed...Just terrible brrrr...

Most important is good plans for remodeling. Usually 2 weeks remodeling become 4 weeks or more. You must prepare youself for varius extra problems also. Sometimes, you must improvise. But, remember that patient safety is most important.

Yes, yes, best for you is to take days off and avoid ICU nurse nightmare.

Good luck!!!

Our remodel took nearly a year -- rather hard to take that much time off, but one nurse did manage. (She raised malingering to a whole new level!)

Yes, it was difficult but after the first few weeks of uproar, we got used to it. Supplies were in a new place every few weeks, we had 1/4 of our beds blocked off at any one time, and sometimes you had to thread the obstacle course of workmen on ladders while pushing a bed with a critically ill patient followed by a parade of ventilator, IABP or VAD, and various family members. It was interesting.

Flexibility is key, and a sense of humor doesn't hurt, either!