Categorising Critically Ill Patients by Critical Care Nurses

Critical care nursing is the delivery of specialised care to critically ill patients or patients with the potential to become critically ill – that is, those who have or are susceptible to life-threatening illnesses or injuries. Such patients may be unstable, have complex needs and require intensive and vigilant critical care nursing. The Department of Health categorises acute hospital patient care into levels from 0 to 3:

Level 0 is normal acute ward care.
Level 1 is acute ward care with the input of critical care specialists, e.g. outreach. This may be required because of recent discharge from a critical care unit or because the patient’s condition or therapy/equipment used in their care means increased intervention is needed.
Level 2 is high dependency care for patients requiring an increased level of monitoring owing to their condition or potential for deterioration or patients with single organ failure/support. Nurse to patient ratios for this level of care are usually one nurse to two patients.
Level 3 is intensive care for patients with two or more organ failure/support or requiring mechanical ventilation. Nurse to patient ratios for this level of care are usually one nurse to one patient.
Illnesses and injuries commonly seen in patients on critical care units, either separate level 2 and 3 facilities or combined units, include:

traumatic injuries from such events as road traffic accidents, falls and assaults
cardiovascular disorders, such as heart failure and acute coronary syndromes (unstable angina and myocardial infarction [MI])
elective surgeries, such as abdominal aortic aneurysm repair and carotid endarterectomy
emergency surgeries, such as bowel perforation and neurosurgery
neurological disorders, such as hypoxic brain damage and subarachnoid haemorrhage
respiratory disorders, such as acute respiratory failure and pulmonary embolism
GI and hepatic disorders, such as acute pancreatitis, acute upper GI bleeding and acute liver failure
renal disorders, such as acute and chronic renal failure
cancers, such as lung, oesophageal and gastric cancer
shock caused by hypovolaemia, sepsis and cardiogenic events (such as after MI)
Meet the critical care nurse

They are responsible for making sure that critically ill patients and members of their families receive close attention and the best care possible.

What do you do?

Fill many roles in the hospital setting, such as staff nurses, sisters, charge nurses, nurse-educators, nurse-managers, clinical nurse specialists, advanced nurse practitioners (ANPs), nurse consultants and outreach nurses.

Where do you work?

Wherever critically ill patients are found, including:

adult, paediatric and neonatal intensive care units (ICUs) and high dependency units (HDUs), or combined critical care units caring for both level 2 and level 3 patients
coronary care units
cardiothoracic/neurosurgical/burns/liver units
accident and emergency departments
postanaesthesia/postoperative care units
general wards as part of an ‘outreach’ team (providing care to patients and education to staff caring for patients with complex care needs, potential to deteriorate or recently discharged from a critical care unit).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments Off

Why Critical Care is So Important

Critical care is an area of medicine that deals with the life-support and care of patients that are critically ill. Normally if you hear doctors refer to a patient as being in critical care, they are basically saying that the patient is in intensive care. The medicines that are administered in critical care are also intensive care medicines. This kind of service was established in different hospitals to ensure that you and the ones you love will be well taken cared of in times of emergency. The critical care service may not seem that important to you now until you are in a position where you or a member of your family is in desperate need of this service. Nevertheless, being aware that this service is available to you will make you feel a lot more comfortable, if you were to find yourself in an unfortunate emergency health situation.

It is very important that medical critical care services be available for 24 hours every day, as there are many people, probably thousands that may require this service on a day to day basis. It is highly recommended that you have a medical care service on call, if you are looking after members of your family that are diagnosed with diseases which make them susceptible to strokes, heart attacks or any other disease that is life threatening. In addition, in the case of pregnant women, these services can provide the much needed help if a delicate emergency delivery of the baby were to take place. This kind of service would also ensure that the necessary health care is given if any complications were to be developed at the time, or during delivery.

Critical care service would also be the best chance you have at getting emergency health care, if you were to develop or experience any severe medical complications in your body. This is because this service would ensure that intensive care is given to you by the medical staff as quickly as possible. In addition, there is no other medical service available that would be able to let you recover as quickly and safely as the service provided by critical care.

However, in order to be considered for the critical care services, your injury or illness, must meet the definition of a critically ill or injured individual. A person who is critically ill or injured is in a state that will harm one or more than one, of their vital organ systems, for example the respiratory system. The harm being done in this case to your vital organ system, must also be considered to be life threatening or a situation that will definitely result in your condition getting worse. If your injury or illness, meets the conditions above, then the critical care service would be administered to you.

If it so happens that you have to go to the critical care unit one day, there will be a team of doctors who will administer the necessary critical care service. They will perform critical services that will involve very complex decisions to control, assess, and support the operations of your vital organ system, and your organ system failure will be treated. These doctors will also carry out the necessary measures to ensure that your situation does not deteriorate any further, thus saving your life or the life of a member of your family.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off