Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
As the pediatric hospital for Los Angeles, our hospital is a referral center for young patients requiring highly complicated and life-saving procedures. Within the PICU, children from multiple surgical specialties including neurosurgery, orthopaedics, and general pediatric surgery receive advanced level care. The PICU will increase in size by 20 percent when the New Hospital Building opens. Given the large number of PICU patients who require surgery, the expanded, 24-bed unit will be located on the same level as the Burtie Green Bettingen Surgery Center. The PICU also will house the Laura P. and Leland K. Whittier Virtual Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Critical Care Faculty in the PICUThe faculty consists of twelve board-certified pediatric intensivists, four of whom also attend in the CTICU. The group has just under 200 years of experience among them and nearly 200 publications (list of recent publications). The faculty in the PICU facilitate and coordinate the complete care of all patients and have an active role in the education of residents and fellows as it relates to this medical and perioperative care. They also serve as consultants for the fellow-led, hospital-wide, Rapid Response Team. |
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Care of the patients in the PICU is guided by a multidisciplinary approach. Nurses and Respiratory care practitioners are dedicated to the PICU and are specifically in tune to the needs of the children under their care. They are well versed in their ability to engage residents, fellows, and faculty alike in the evolving care of their patients. They are supported educationally and clinically by four dedicated nurse managers as well as the fellows and faculty. An air of “teamwork” is clearly seen in this unit.
As with the CTICU staff, the PICU staff also have an expertise in the use of advances technologies such as inhaled nitric oxide, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, non-invasive ventilation, and modes of dialysis.
