An ICU is an intensive care unit. The ICU is where you’ll stay if you need 24-hour critical care or life support.
The healthcare providers who work in the ICU have extensive training in intensive care medicine. Typically, each nurse will monitor only one or two patients at a time.
A 2016 study looked at more than 34,000 Medicare beneficiaries who received intensive care, survived, and were discharged from the hospital in 2005. The average length of stay in the ICU for the people in this study was 3.4 days.
The same study found that the use of mechanical ventilation in the ICU was often associated with longer stays. The researchers found that longer stays, with or without mechanical ventilation, were associated with higher 1-year mortality.
Some hospitals may divide the ICU into more specific units such as:
- CICU or CVICU: cardiac, coronary, or cardiovascular intensive care unit
- MICU: medical intensive care unit
- NICU: neonatal intensive care unit
- PICU: pediatric intensive care unit
- SICU: surgical intensive care unit
- TICU: trauma intensive care unit
Admittance to an ICU means there’s a life threatening event. You may need to be cared for in the ICU if you:
- have had major surgery, such as brain surgery, open heart surgery, coronary bypass surgery, or an organ transplant
- have experienced major trauma such as a head injury or spinal cord injury
- have had a heart attack or stroke
- have serious burns
- can’t breathe on your own
- have vital organ failure
- have life threatening complications of diabetes
- have a life threatening infection
- are in a coma
