ICU

Registered Nurses in the Intensive Care Unit at Redlands Community Hospital will demonstrate professional excellence while providing care to critically ill patients and their families by practicing the art and science of nursing. Our practice is built on a foundation of caring and evidence-based practice principles. RCH ICU nurses are committed to the highest ethical and professional standards which respect each individual’s unique physical, emotional, and spiritual needs; thus, being open to miracles, engaging in the artistry of caring-healing practices, and being authentically present, utilizing a collaborative model in which the efforts of several disciplines are coordinated to provide optimal patient-centered care.

Nursing excellence is at the forefront of RCH’s outstanding patient care.

The Intensive Care Unit empowers the professional nurse to recognize his/her unique gifts, to give voice to ideas, to strive for personal, professional, and academic excellence, and to accept the challenge of the human experience. Shared governance is a structure and process in which clinicians participate fully in all activities that have an impact on their work. The nurses are continuously striving for excellence leading them to pursue Critical Care Certification (CCRN), chemotherapy certification, nurse mentor or nurse preceptor. Our nurse preceptors take a class preparing them for orientation and training of new graduate nurses. New nurses are an important part of the team and receive extensive training before going on their own.

The critical care team includes a diverse group of highly trained professionals.

This team works toward the best outcome possible for the critically ill patients. All members of the team may be asked to teach patients and their families various strategies to improve health, healing, coping, and well-being specific to their area of expertise. Members of the team include an Intensivist, Nurse Practitioner, Critical Care Nurse, Pharmacist, Dietitian, Respiratory Therapist, Physical and Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist, Social Worker, Case Manager and Pastoral Care Provider. Each team member's performance becomes the obligation of peers rather than management. Ownership and responsibility for patient care and patient outcomes is a team process looking at each team member's contribution. Interdisciplinary rounds are conducted every day and patient’s families are encouraged to attend to discuss plan of care; family conferences might be arranged to further discuss pertinent issues.

The 12-bed Intensive Care Unit includes adult and geriatric patients who have a broad spectrum of complex medical diagnoses. These may include acute and chronic respiratory failure, sepsis, liver failure, renal failure, multi-system organ failure, pulmonary hypertension, diabetic ketoacidosis, drug overdose, oncologic critical care diagnoses, stroke, acute myocardial infarct, status post cardiac or respiratory arrest, craniotomies, brain hemorrhages, strokes, neuro intervention, status epilepticus and neuromuscular disorders. ICU patients are 1:1 or 1:2 nursing ratio patient care and are managed by medical intensivists with pulmonary and critical care expertise in collaboration with other specialties. Patients may require mechanical ventilation, minimally invasive hemodynamic monitoring, ICP monitoring, hemodialysis, titration of vasoactive and vasodilator medications, tracheostomies, cardioversion, defibrillation, transvenous and transcutaneous pacing, sedation, chemotherapy, external body cooling devices, continuous EEG monitoring, and pre-op and post-op complex surgical care.

Our ICU care is dynamic and rapidly changing but never at the expense of the human person; always making a difference in another’s life.