Critical Care Medicine
Overview
A total of 45 state-of-the-art beds are designated for Critical Care at Children’s, with three distinct units and teams providing Neonatal, Pediatric, and Cardiac Intensive Care services, with an emphasis on family-centered care.
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) consists of a team of doctors and nurses specially trained to provide care for infants with prematurity and/or medical and surgical congenital disorders up to 1 month of age.
The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) consists of doctors and nurses with expertise in the care of infants and children with congenital and acquired heart diseases, both medical and surgical in nature.
The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is staffed by doctors and nurses dedicated to the care of infants and children with the full spectrum of both medical and surgical childhood diseases.
Each of these services has expertise in the full range of modern-day support modalities including ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) and internal and external mechanical heart support. Infants and children undergoing heart, liver, kidney and small bowel transplants, as well as those who have undergone bone marrow transplantations, are all routinely admitted to the ICU’s.
Diagnoses or Conditions Treated
The top diagnoses for the ICU are:
- Acute liver failure
- Acute kidney failure
- Bacterial meningitis
- Bacterial sepsis
- Birth depression or trauma
- Brain tumors
- Bronchiolitis
- Congenital and acquired heart disease
- Craniofacial anomalies
- Diaphragmatic hernia
- Foreign body aspiration
- Infant respiratory distress syndrome
- Meconeum aspiration syndrome
- Near drowning
- Necrotizing enterocolitis
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Respiratory failure
- Seizures
Physician Leadership
- Harris P. Baden, MD, Medical Director, CICU
- Craig Jackson, MD, MHA, Medical Director, NICU
- Jerry J. Zimmerman, MD, PhD, Medical Director, PICU