ICU expands to care for more patients in crisis
The COVID-19 outbreak accelerated the need for expanded critical care space at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. Thanks to generous donors, a brand new intensive care unit on the lower level of the hospital opened in December 2021. This timely addition increases our critical care capacity by 16 beds.
Typically patients in our critical care unit have needed expert, intensive care for heart attacks, heart failure, strokes and respiratory or renal failure. The recent pandemic, our increasing provision of acute heart services as well as population growth in our community heightened the need for critical care space.
Providence caregivers were involved in development of the new space to ensure it worked well for their needs as well as for patients. “Caregivers are feeling really confident about their ability to provide the best possible care,” said Laura Lightner, RN, ICU operations manager. A new cardiovascular monitoring system lets caregivers know what is going on in a patient’s room, and at every nursing station caregivers can monitor all patients at once.
“If we do see a surge in COVID patients, we now have an intensive care bed for them,” said Nancy Roberts, who retired in June 2021 as chief operating officer. “We could not have done this without donor support.”
Each spacious room provides state-of-the-art monitoring equipment and features a movable console that improves the patient’s ability to engage directly with family or other visitors. In addition to housing standard equipment, such as IV, suction and oxygen, the 360-degree console holds patient comfort items, including the call light and telephone.