Critical Care Unit

At Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, highly trained staff and leading-edge technology combine to provide critical care patients with the highest level care when they need it most. The expansion of the Good Samaritan Critical Hospital Care Unit, to be completed summer 2005, will further the hospital's commitment to providing the finest critical care, right in our community.

The unit will provide treatment for serious conditions that require ongoing monitoring, such as heart attacks, strokes, severe accidents or illnesses, or complex surgeries.

A personal touch
Good Samaritan Hospital's commitment to family-focused care will be evident in the new Critical Care Unit's design. Expanding from semi-private rooms to 44 private rooms, patients will have greater privacy as well as plenty of space to have their families by their sides. The rooms will contain sofa beds, private bathrooms and ports for Internet access.

In addition, each room will have at least one window because studies have shown that natural sunlight and views of the outdoors help speed recovery, and boost energy and optimism in critically ill patients.

In addition, nurses will be able to respond more quickly to patients' calls because their workstations will be located just outside patients' rooms. The accessible workstations also make it easier for nurses to check on patients anytime. The ICU will be located on the same floor as the emergency department, so transporting patients to the Critical Care Unit will be less disruptive to patients.

During a patient's stay in the Critical Care Unit, the critical care staff stays in constant contact with the patient's primary care doctor or specialist, enabling these physicians to follow their patient's condition closely and provide input on his or her recovery.

A technological touch
A close-knit team of critical care nurses, patients' primary care physicians and specialists, such as cardiologists and pulmonologists, staffs the unit, and their protocols for service are precise.

The staff workstations are Internet accessible, so patient records can be viewed by authorized staff whenever necessary. The hospital saves records digitally, enabling physicians and nurses to access records securely anywhere, anytime, so ultimately treatment isn't delayed. In addition, through Good Samaritan Hospital's state-of-the-art picture archiving and communication system (PACS), even radiology images can be viewed digitally, facilitating swift and accurate diagnoses.

A major advancement in the ICU is the electronic Intensive Care Unit (eICU®) care program. Implemented in 2003 at Good Samaritan Hospital, the system uses special audio and video equipment to monitor patients in the ICU every minute of the day. Advocate's eICU program is the first in the Midwest and the largest in the nation.

The critical care expansion will allow patients and their families to feel confident in the unit's well-rounded, ever-advancing care.