Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 95 views

    8.11 Introduction To Critical Care

    Uploaded by

    Ghianx Carlox Pioquintox
    Critical care units provide around-the-clock care for patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries by closely monitoring vital signs and supporting failing organs. A team of specially trained medical, nursing, and allied health professionals deliver specialized treatments using machines in critical care units. Patients treated in critical care units are acutely or critically ill and at high risk of mortality from their current health problems.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    8.11 Introduction To Critical Care

    Uploaded by

    Ghianx Carlox Pioquintox
    95 views3 pages
    Critical care units provide around-the-clock care for patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries by closely monitoring vital signs and supporting failing organs. A team of specially trained medical, nursing, and allied health professionals deliver specialized treatments using machines in critical care units. Patients treated in critical care units are acutely or critically ill and at high risk of mortality from their current health problems.

    Original Title

    8.11 Introduction to Critical Care

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Critical care units provide around-the-clock care for patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries by closely monitoring vital signs and supporting failing organs. A team of specially trained medical, nursing, and allied health professionals deliver specialized treatments using machines in critical care units. Patients treated in critical care units are acutely or critically ill and at high risk of mortality from their current health problems.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    95 views3 pages

    8.11 Introduction To Critical Care

    Uploaded by

    Ghianx Carlox Pioquintox
    Critical care units provide around-the-clock care for patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries by closely monitoring vital signs and supporting failing organs. A team of specially trained medical, nursing, and allied health professionals deliver specialized treatments using machines in critical care units. Patients treated in critical care units are acutely or critically ill and at high risk of mortality from their current health problems.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 3
    At a glance
    Powered by AI
    The key takeaways are that critical care units provide specialized care for patients with life-threatening injuries and illnesses using a multidisciplinary team approach. They constantly monitor vital signs and provide dedicated medical and nursing care.

    The functions of a critical care unit are to monitor and support threatened or failing vital functions in critically ill patients, perform diagnostic tests and medical/surgical therapies to improve patient outcomes.

    The history of critical care units dates back to Florence Nightingale separating more critically ill patients. Modern critical care units emerged in the 1950s with mechanical ventilation and the 1970s saw the establishment of critical care medicine guidelines. Contemporary critical care is provided by an interprofessional team across various hospital settings.

    8.

    11 - Introduction to Critical Care with human responses to life-threatening


    problems.
    1. The Set-Up
    • These problems deal dynamically with
    Critical Care Unit / Intensive Care Unit
    human responses to actual or potential
    • A hospital unit where 24-hour medical care is life-threatening illnesses”
    rendered to patients with life-threatening injuries (CCNAPI, 2014)
    and illnesses
    5. The CCU Nurse
    • A distinct organizational & geographic section
     A licensed professional nurse who is responsible
    for clinical activity & care, operating in
    for ensuring that all acutely and critically ill
    coordination with other departments integrated
    patients receive optimal care
    in a hospital
     Basic to the provision of optimal care is
    2. The Functions individual professional accountability through:
     Adherence to the standards of nursing
    Critical Care Unit / Intensive Care Unit: care of acutely ill and critically ill
    • To monitor & support threatened or failing vital patients
    functions in critically ill patients,  Commitment to act in accordance with
    ethical principles
     with illnesses that can endanger life, &  Essential Elements of CCN:
     that adequate diagnostic measures &  Nursing expertise
    medical or surgical therapies are  Ability to observe patients
    performed to improve their outcome  Appropriate nursing intensity

    3. The Men and Women 6. The CCU Patients:

    Critical Care Unit / Intensive Care Unit Acutely and Critically Ill Patients

    • A team of specially-trained health care providers • Patients who are at high risk for
    are involved in rendering specialized treatments mortality due to present health problems
    with the use of machines to constantly monitor (AACN, 2015)
    vital signs • At high risk of actual or life-threatening
    • With dedicated medical, nursing, & allied health health problems (Aitken, Chaboyer,
    staff that operates with defined policies & Elliot, 2019)
    procedures, with its own quality improvement,
    continuing education, & research programs
    4. CCU Nursing Discipling
    Acute and Critical Care Nursing
    • The specialty within nursing that
    specifically deals with human responses
    to actual or potential life-threatening
    Development of Critical Care Units (CCU)
    health symptoms and diagnosis (AACN,
    2015)
    • Assisting, supporting, and restoring the
    patient toward health, or to ease the
    patient’s pain, or to prepare them for
    dignified death (World Federation of
    Critical Nurses)
    • “Critical care nursing is the specialty
    within nursing that deals specifically
    History of Critical Care • Provided by a multidisciplinary
    (multiprofessionals) team of health care
    • 1800 - Florence Nightingale :
    professionals equipped with an extensive
     advantages of separating recovering education & expertise in the specialty field of
    surgical patients critical care
     needs of acute, life-threatening illness
    or injury could be better met if the  physicians intensivist / specialty
    patients were organized in distinct areas physicians
    of the hospital  nurses (advanced practice nurses –
    • WW2 – shock wards were set to care for APNs)
    critically injured patients  pharmacists
    • 1900 – John Hopkins Hospital  respiratory therapists / other specialized
    • 3-bed post-op neurosurgical CC therapists
    (Baltimore)  social workers
    • premature infants unit (Chicago)  clergy / other religious sect
    • 1950s – mechanical ventilation was introduced –  Critical care is provided in specialized units,
    establishing the first ICU (respiratory) with emphasis on the continuum of care, with an
    • 1970s – the Society of Critical Care Medicine efficient & seamless transition of care from one
    (SCCM) was established and became the driving setting to another
    force behind:  Settings:
    • critical care guidelines  adult / pediatric / neonatal
    • education  step-down / telemetry / progressive or
    • interdisciplinary collaborative transitional care units
    initiatives  intentional radiology departments
    • WW2 :  post-op recovery units

     provided for the impetus for Scope of Practice


    specialized MS Nursing care in the  Describers the; Who, What, Where, When,
    civilian setting. Why & How the nurse functions when caring
     the most critically ill patients were for acutely & critically ill patients
    segregated in areas where they can be  Should allow for an exchange, expansion, and
    cared for by nurses with specialized flexibility of the profession to meet the changing
    knowledge. needs of patients, organizations, and society
     Organized as a specialty less than 60 years ago  Boundaries of the practitioner’s license:
    (1960s)  procedures
    • 1960s  nursing actions
     physicians depended on nurses to assess  processes
    for critical changes in  For which the practitioner has received:
    their patients  education
     nurses would initiate emergency  training
    medical treatment  licensure
     nurses began consolidating their  certification
    knowledge & practice into focused areas Scope of Critical Care Practice
    (coronary care, nephrology, intensive • Activities that the CCN is permitted to perform
    care) • Scope of practice is established by the ACT of
     nurses assumed many functions & the specific practitioner's board, and the rules
    responsibilities formerly reserved for adopted pursuant to the act (AACN, 2015)
    physicians, & assumed a new authority Critical Illness:
    by virtue of their knowledge & expertise • Any disease process which causes physiological
    INSTABILITY leading to:
    Contemporary Critical Care
     disability or death within minutes or
    hours
     Disturbance of these systems generally has the
    most immediate life-threatening effects
     neurological
     respiratory
     cardiovascular
    Critical Illness: Common Observations
    • Hypotension
    • Tachycardia
    • Tachypnea
    • Reduced level of urine output
    • Altered consciousness
    NOTE: The presence of 2 or more of these signs
    strongly suggests that the patient is critically ill and at
    risk of death

    You might also like