Medical Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

After admission to the medical ICU, you’ll receive care from a team that specializes in caring for critically ill patients. A physician called a medical intensivist leads the team. Intensivists are trained to treat extremely ill patients. These physicians work closely with critical care nurses, who provide bedside care and communicate with patients’ families.

A variety of other medical professionals may play a role in your care. These include a pharmacist, who ensures you receive the medications you need during your stay. Respiratory therapists may work with you if you have difficulty breathing. Physical therapists and other rehabilitation therapists can help you maintain strength and functional abilities. Additional professionals you may encounter include physician assistants, nurse practitioners and registered dietitians.

A variety of life-threatening conditions may require critical care, from heart attacks and strokes to serious injuries and surgical complications. Our intensivists and critical care nurses treat patients with a wide range of serious illnesses and injuries, including:

• Extreme bleeding

• COVID-19

• Respiratory failure — struggling to breathe independently, sometimes due to another medical condition, such as pneumonia

• Sepsis — when the body overreacts to an infection, potentially leading to organ damage or failure

• Serious infections

• Severe burns

• Shock — a sudden drop in blood flow throughout the body that reduces oxygen to cells and organs

• Traumatic injuries

Critical care in the medical ICUs varies widely, depending on patients’ condition and needs. The critical care team uses a variety of monitoring equipment to keep track of patients’ vital signs 24/7. Some ICU patients need life-support equipment, such as feeding tubes for nutritional support or ventilators for breathing. Many receive fluids or medications through intravenous tubes.

Length of stay in the unit varies from patient to patient and depends on response to care and other factors. After leaving the medical ICU, some patients may go to a stepdown unit, a hospital ward where they can continue receiving acute care and monitoring, or a long-term acute care hospital.

Yes. The medical ICU isn’t the only hospital ward in which critical care takes place. In the surgical intensive care unit, a specially trained team works with patients recovering from surgery. A specially trained team in the neonatal intensive care unit treats babies born prematurely or with complex medical needs. Some Ochsner hospitals offer specialty units for neurocritical care, cardiovascular intensive care or pediatric intensive care. Critical care capabilities vary from hospital to hospital within the Ochsner system.

A level 1 ICU provides supplemental oxygen and noninvasive monitoring of patients’ vital signs but not life-support services. Basic, short-term life-support services and invasive medical monitoring are available in a level 2 unit. A level 3 ICU provides the highest degree of critical care, including comprehensive monitoring and life-support capabilities. All intensive care units feature high-level nursing.

An advance directive notifies your family and medical team how you’d like your care to proceed if you can’t communicate or make decisions. It’s a good idea to have an advance directive in the event you need critical care and are unconscious or need sedation.