Intensive Care Unit
The Intensive Care Unit at St. Elizabeth Hospital provides continuous and comprehensive care for patients who are critically ill or have potentially life-threatening illness or injury.
What Can I Expect?
Patients in the Intensive Care Unit receive the highest level or most intense care of any section of the hospital. Patients are continuously monitored for signs of trouble.
Medical Care Team
Patients in the Intensive Care Unit are attended to by their own Primary Care Physician or a Hospitalist, a doctor specializing in seeing patients in the hospital setting. There is one Registered Nurse for every two patients. All staff are trained in Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
St. Elizabeth Hospital is also pleased to provide Mobile Virtual Critical Care to its ICU patients. Mobile Virtual Critical Care provides remote 24 hour monitoring of patients in the ICU by Registered Nurses trained in Critical Care Nursing. These nurses, located at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, have real-time access to the patient's medical chart and vital signs. In addition, Intensivists, doctors specially trained in critical care, are available 24 hours a day. Special equipment in each patient's room even allows the Critical Care nurses and Intensivists to "see" and communicate with the patient, doctors, and nurses at St. Elizabeth Hospital, if necessary.
Visiting
Because visiting can be tiring to the patient, we ask that friends and relatives follow these visitation guidelines.
- For the comfort of other patients, we ask that visitors speak quietly.
- Patients are susceptible to contagious illnesses, so persons with colds, sore throats or other contagious illnesses should not visit.
- Please respect all "no visitor" and "isolation" signs. These signs have been ordered by the attending physician for the patient's benefit.
- A nurse or physician may request that you limit your visiting time, and/or the number of visitors.
Please respect these requests so that the patient may get adequate rest.
No one under the age of 13 years is allowed to visit the Intensive Care Unit. Visitation sessions may be delayed or interrupted in cases of unexpected medical emergencies.
Visiting Hours are available 24/7 with a limit of two visitors during the day and one in the evening.