Medical Critical Care Services

Critical Care at the Hospital

The Critical Care Service utilizes integrated teams to provide targeted and efficient evaluation and care for complex medical patients.

Critical Care Consult Team

This team provides consultative service in the areas of critical care, acute respiratory failure, septic shock, ventilator management or pulmonary medicine, in non-medical intensive care units, and consists of a Pulmonary/Critical Care attending and fellow, with service available 24 hours/day.

Intermediate Care Unit Consult Service

Our 32-bed intermediate care unit provides care for complex medical patients in a 24-hour monitored setting, with higher nurse-to-patient ratios. Primary medical teams have access to a dedicated Pulmonary/Critical Care attending and fellow to help manage patients in the intermediate care unit. Our team includes an embedded critical care psychologist who helps provide mental health resources and support to our patients and families in the MICU and the intermediate care unit.

Ventilator Management Team

We provide consultative service to patients that require invasive mechanical ventilation outside the ICU setting. Our interprofessional team includes a pulmonary/critical care attending physician, respiratory therapist, dedicated social worker, and care manager. The team helps coordinate care with physical, occupational, and speech therapy, nutrition, and wound care to provide comprehensive care to ventilated patients. Our goals are to optimize their weaning and comfort while simultaneously assisting the primary team in their care and optimal discharge planning.

ICU Triage

Our ICU Triage Team is focused on prompt recognition and early intervention to obviate the need for ICU-level care whenever possible. For patients too sick to avert critical organ dysfunction, the goal is to begin providing the highest level of care as early as possible in order to improve outcomes. The team includes a pulmonary/critical Care attending and a third-year Internal Medicine resident. The ICU Triage Team includes the Cardiac Arrest Team, Rapid Response Team, and ED Critical Care Team. The ED Critical Care Team provides emergent consultation, management, and transport of ED patients requiring ICU-level services.

Rapid Response Team

Our interprofessional team is led by a critical care nurse and respiratory therapist, with guidance from our ICU triage team. We assist the patient’s primary team in the rapid assessment and management of a patient in distress and help coordinate transfer to a higher level of care if needed.