Critical care medicine crosses the traditional boundaries of medical specialties. Intensive care is a specialized medical and nursing care provided to patients facing life-threatening illness or injury. It is estimated that 80 percent of all Americans will experience critical care services as the patient or family or friend of a patient during their lifetime.

Typical examples of critical illness include heart attack, poisoning, pneumonia, surgical complications, premature birth, and stroke. Critical care also includes trauma care - care of the severely injured - whether due to an automobile accident, gunshot or stabbing wounds, a fall, burns, or an industrial accident.

Patients are rarely admitted directly to the critical care unit. Rather, they are usually admitted from the emergency room, trauma center or surgical area where they are first given care and stabilized. Critical care begins at the moment of illness or injury and continues throughout the patient's hospitalization, treatment, and subsequent recovery.

Critical care nurses provide a high level of skilled nursing for continuous and total patient care. Their expertise and continuous presence allow critical care nurses to recognize subtle, but significant, changes in patient conditions, thereby preventing worsening conditions and minimizing complications that arise from critical illness. Registered nurses who receive highly specialized education become certified in critical care nursing and receive designation as "CCRN."

A new specialty for physicians has emerged from critical care medicine. An intensivist is a physician with subspecialty training, or equivalent qualifications, in critical care medicine. An intensivist directs the care of critically ill patients and works in collaboration with other health care professionals necessary for the care of patients in critical care units.

Intensive care units involve health care professionals from different disciplines: medical, nursing, and allied health, providing the skills in a collaborative, cooperative, and coordinated fashion. The three intensive care units at Northridge Hospital provide the highest level of care available to critically ill patients.

Our combined 32-bed Intensive and Coronary Care Unit (ICU and CCU) features advanced technology for medical, cardiac, respiratory, and trauma patients. The 22-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) cares for critically ill newborns, requiring expertise to treat the smallest, sickest, and most fragile babies. Our 8-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) cares for seriously ill children. The PICU is also a Virtual Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (VPICU) Telemedicine Program that allows physicians of critically ill pediatric patients to have immediate access to a team of experts from all over Southern California.

The Cardiovascular Unit provides around-the-clock medical attention for patients with cardiac and vascular diagnoses. The Cardiovascular Unit exists to support the patient requiring close observation services including post-CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft) surgery, post-vascular surgeries, post-cardiac, and radiology intervention.

The Telemetry unit provides around-the-clock medical attention and is considered an intermediate unit providing specialized services to patients with cardiac and pulmonary diagnosis. The Telemetry unit exists to support all medical cardiology patients requiring frequent nursing care and continuous telemetry monitoring.

Information for Visitors

The Critical Care Center, also known as the Intensive Care Unit, provides the highest level of care available to critically ill patients. In the Critical Care Center, patients need rest. Nurses need to spend their time at the bedside caring for the patients. Patients and visitors must be protected from infectious diseases, and patient privacy and confidentiality must be preserved.

Visitors to the Critical Care Center are allowed 24-hours-a-day, except from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. for nursing shift change. Visits are limited to immediate family members only, with no more than two visitors at a time. If you wish to visit a Critical Care patient, please use the intercoms located outside the unit's doors to check first with the nurses' station.

We also ask that you select a spokesperson to keep the family informed of the patient's progress so multiple family members do not need to call in to the Critical Care Center. This spokesperson should be able to contact the nurse caring for the patient, and be available for the nurse to contact. The spokesperson can then contact and communicate with the other family members. 

Visitor Guidelines

Please keep the following guidelines in mind when visiting the Critical Care Center.

• Be considerate of the needs of other visitors who may have similar issues and emotions as you and your family.
  
• Keep the number of visitors in the waiting room to a minimum.  The waiting area is not big enough to accommodate a large number of people, and we want to be fair to everyone. 
  
• We suggest that one or two family representative stay in the Critical Care Center waiting room, while the remainder of your group waits in the more spacious cafeteria area or first floor lobby.

• Please do not bring children under age 12 to the waiting area unless absolutely necessary, and please do not leave them unsupervised. Children accompanied by an adult are welcome on the first floor lobby or in the cafeteria.
  
• To help keep the waiting area clean for everyone, do not bring in meals, picnics, or packaged food items. Covered drinks are OK. Food is available in the cafeteria on the basement level and vending machines are on the first floor.
  
• Please do not sleep in the waiting room. We have a list of local hotels available at the 24-hour Security Desk.
  
• To ensure everyone has a place to sit, do not put items on unused seats.
  
• Please do not sit on the floors in the waiting area or in the hallways.

No live flowers or plants are allowed in the Critical Care Center, nor may we permit visitors to bring food without checking with the nurse first. We encourage cards, letters, and small mementos that may be safety left at the patient's bedside. If you have questions, ask the nurse caring for your loved one.

In some situations, a patient who has been a victim of a violent crime may be admitted under special circumstances for safety reasons. If this is the case with your loved one, the Trauma Volunteers, Trauma Coordinators, or Critical Care Charge Nurse will assist you in understanding special visiting restrictions and conditions.

If you need information or help with these guidelines, please call the Security Desk at extension 4645, or use the visitor intercom outside the Critical Care Center to speak to the Charge Nurse, or call hospital extension 5317 and ask for the Charge Nurse.