Big, bright windows. New, state-of-the-art equipment. Double-the-size rooms. Better-than-ever intensive care.
When Cabell Huntington Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, Surgical Intensive Care Unit and Cardiac Intensive Care Unit move into their new homes in the North Patient Tower on Dec. 13, they’ll leave behind their 25-year-old units, and offer patients bright comfortable rooms with all of the modern conveniences.
Dr. Kevin Yingling, president of the Medical and Dental Staffs at the hospital, has said the new facilities will bring into sharper focus the highly intense areas of medical care the hospital provides.
“In these high acuity areas of care, a state-of-the-art facility can make a difference in the overall outcome of the patient,” he said. “The majority of the areas in this new building are highly intense areas of care, such as surgical ICU.”
The move to expanded intensive care units is one facing hospitals across the country.
“All hospitals are going to have to expand their ICU beds, so this is going to be extremely helpful for us,” said David Denning, chairman of Marshall University School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery. Denning said hospitals’ ICUs are loaded with pneumonia patients in the cooler months and car and ATV accident victims in the warmer months.
When the intensive care unit takes occupancy alongside the surgical and cardiac intensive care units on the new fourth floor, it will move into a unit that is equipped to keep pace with the latest trends in health care.
“The unit we’re currently in is 25 years old. The rooms are very small, and there is a real lack of storage space. There is very little room to accommodate the equipment that is needed to take care of critically ill patients. We also have six rooms with no windows to the outside,” said adult ICU nurse manager Dennie Letcher. “What we’re moving into is going to provide a lot better quality of care and atmosphere for our patients.”
The new Intensive Care Unit will feature 20 beds with rooms twice the size of those in the present location. Each room is fully equipped with new monitors and improved access for procedures such as dialysis. Nurses will keep patients’ charts updated using computers located in every patient room as well as using terminals located outside every two rooms. Additionally, the staff will change from a combined nurses’ station to decentralized nursing.
“The goal is to keep nurses at the patient’s bedside. We have a wonderful, really highly tenured staff,” Letcher said.
One of the biggest advantages to the design of the new rooms is the change from a traditional headwall at the head of the bed to a column design. The move offers more flexibility in positioning a patient’s bed, as well as the equipment required for treatment.
“When those things are built in to the wall, you’re very limited in what you can do. With these, you’ll have two columns, six feet back from the wall, where you can position the monitors or ventilator on either side,” she explained.
The rooms feature breakaway doors, which swing open wide for easier transport in and out of patients’ rooms to undergo examinations, such as CT or MRI scans, elsewhere in the hospital.
The ICU will include six isolation rooms, with entryways between the outside door and the patient’s environment equipped with a sink and personal protective gear, such as masks and gowns, for the most immune-compromised patients.
For the surgical and cardiac intensive care units, staff members are moving from a unit with 10 beds to one with 18. The biggest advantage to this move, according to nurse manager Tammy Knight, is not necessarily the size or number of rooms, but location in proximity to the regular adult ICU.
“We see mostly post-surgical patients and trauma patients in SICU and cardiac patients in CICU, while the adult ICU sees more general ICU patients,” Knight said. “The real change for us is going to be the advantage of all of it being located on the fourth floor.
“Today, the SICU is on the second floor and the CICU is on the fifth floor. Thursday, we will have everything in one place, and it is going to be a big bonus.”
Like the adult ICU, the SICU and CICU offer the decentralized nursing stations, increased storage areas and updated medical technology, including patient monitors that have only been on the market for three weeks. The unit will also include four negative airflow rooms for the most immune-compromised patients.
Aesthetically, the rooms in all three units have received a major facelift. Aside from the increase in room size, each room has a large window with a view, as well as flat screen televisions and wireless internet access. Everything from the décor to the windows themselves will offer patients a better experience behind the doors of Cabell Huntington Hospital.
“As simple as it sounds, the windows in the rooms will really help with patient orientation. Typically, patients in a critical care environment find it difficult to differentiate between night and day. When there’s natural light, that helps tremendously,” Letcher said.
Outside the rooms, staff members are gaining expanded and more easily accessible storage solutions, as well as adequate space for larger equipment pieces needing electrical outlet access. There are conference room facilities and teleconferencing access. For the families of their patients, waiting rooms are divided into two smaller, private sub-waiting areas, as well as a more equipped main waiting area.
“The waiting area has a kitchenette with a microwave oven and a refrigerator for families who might be staying for long periods of time,” Knight said.
Letcher added that bathroom facilities will be more easily accessible from the waiting area than they were in the original unit.
The move is one that could not come too soon for many of the staff members – though they leave with fond memories of the old facility.
“Some have expressed sadness over leaving an area of the hospital where they created all these memories during the time they’ve worked here,” Letcher said. “But, we’re ready to form a lot of new memories.”
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