Pcu Floor Post Cardiac Or Progressive Care

Admission criteria for acute progressive and intensive care units system acute care general care telemetry transitional intensive care vital signs stability within acceptable range of tolerance for the patients and or generally evidenced by.

Pcu floor post cardiac or progressive care.

A progressive care unit pcu is a hospital unit that specializes in treating medical and surgical patients whose needs are not serious enough for the intensive care unit icu but too complex for the regular hospital floor. The nurse to patient ratio would be higher than in an icu but lower than a med surg unit anywhere from 1 to 3 to 1 to 5. Many of these patients will need diagnostic tests and interventional treatments such as cardiac catheterization angioplasty or stent placement. I work on a progressive care unit which had a pt rn ratio of 3 1 when i started 3 years ago and now we are moving to 4 1 ratios now.

Medical progressive care unit mpcu the medical progressive care unit mpcu provides specialized care for patients with diagnoses including angina sub acute mi and congestive heart failure chf. Systolic bp equal to or greater than 80 and equal to or less than 200 mmhg. These patients still need a high level of skilled nursing care and surveillance although less so than in an icu but are more stable. Maintain airways and oxygenation status for respiratory failure patients using high flow oxygen optiflow cpap and bipap.

The facility mgmt has stated that 4 1 is the national standard for progressive care units now. How the pcu has evolved in the early 1970s progressive care units housed myocardial infarction patients requiring cardiac monitoring who did not need intensive care observation. The progressive care unit pcu was designed for patients whose care needs fall between what must be delivered in the icu and what can be handled on most general medical floors. However these patients are on the less acute end of the critical care spectrum compared to other areas such as icu.

The progressive care unit has a 3 to 1 ratio of patients to nurses compared with a 2 to 1 ratio in icu and 5 to 1 on the medical surgical floor according to pvh. They have decided to off set this increase in patient loads by increasing the number of cnas on the floor. Not all pcus are created equal as some previous posters mentioned. Some pcus provide general care while others are more focused such as a cardiac care pcu.