Intensive care unit

An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides <a href="/facts/Intensive_care_medicine/lbc92jbH">intensive care medicine</a>.
An intensive care unit (ICU) was defined by the task force of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine as "an organized system for the provision of care to <a href="/facts/Critically_ill/lbc92jbH">critically ill</a> <a href="/facts/Patient/b0SWyyVD">patients</a> that provides intensive and specialized medical and <a href="/facts/Nursing_care/xbmA4GNC">nursing care</a>, an enhanced capacity for monitoring, and multiple modalities of physiologic <a href="/facts/Organ_support/Mop22veW">organ support</a> to sustain life during a period of life-threatening <a href="/facts/Organ_system/KAWNntR0">organ system</a> insufficiency."
Patients may be referred directly from an <a href="/facts/Emergency_department/Qo4NcDeP">emergency department</a> or from a ward if they rapidly deteriorate, or immediately after surgery if the surgery is very invasive and the patient is at high risk of complications.

Intensive care unit open-in-new

Intensive care unit