Running head: INTENSIVE CARE UNIT EXPERIENCE 1
INTENSIVE CARE UNIT EXPERIENCE 3
Intensive Care Unit Experience
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The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is the department in the hospital that is concerned with the diagnosis, treatment, and management of critically ill patients and those patients that are not stable; for example patients with extensive injuries, those who have undergone invasive surgeries and patients with life-threatening diseases.
During the clinical practice in ICU, there were new practices that were noted for example the ICU was divided into subspecialties depending on the patient’s problem, for example, coronary ICU. The nurse-patient ratio is 1:1. In addition to that, there was a lot of, and nutritionist among many other professions all collaborated in the care of the patients in ICU.
Health care is delivered through the systems approach in that patients are treated by the body’s systems; cardiovascular, nervous, musculoskeletal, endocrine, gastrointestinal and pulmonary system. In addition to that in the ICU, the practice of the health care givers is governed by ethical principles like beneficence in that the practitioners must always do what is good for the patients. Another ethical principle is veracity in that the practitioners must always be truthful.
In the ICU, the population of patients with cardiac conditions was higher than other conditions in the ICU. The technology was highly embraced in the ICU; diagnosis and management were done using machines. For example the life-support machines, defibrillators, oxygen concentrators, suction machines among many machines that were used in the ICU. These machines increase efficiency.
Besides that, the ICU is governed by health policies that must be implemented the health caregivers in the ICU. The health policies include the restriction policy that regulates the number of people visiting the ICU rooms. This policy helps to reduce the transfer of infections from other people to the critically ill patients. The ICU is managed by leaders who have had experience in the department for a long time. The ICU funds come from both the government and the patients (cost sharing). Finally, the ICU shows a lot of health disparities. The young, the old, and the people from the higher socioeconomic status are the majority people in the ICU.
