Critical care medicine, also known as intensive care medicine, is an area of medicine concerned with the life support of the seriously ill. Hospitals have highly specialized wards for the monitoring and caring of critically ill patients. Critical care units (CCU's) or intensive care units (ICU's) are staffed by physicians, nurses, paramedics and other medical support groups that are trained in providing critical or intensive care to patients. When a hospital critical care or intensive care unit's level of care, skill or treatment falls below the standard of care and inflicts serious injury or death to a patient, medical malpractice may have occurred.
Hospital critical care or intensive care malpractice may include:
- Delay in Diagnosis or Diagnostic Errors;
- Failure to Diagnose;
- Failure to Document Chart;
- Failure to Document Clinical Findings;
- Failure to Obtain Informed Consent;
- Failure to Obtain Informed Refusal;
- Failure to Refer to Other Specialists;
- Failure to Supervise;
- Failure to Treat;
- Equipment Malfunction;
- Improper Performance;
- Medication Error;
- Drug Overdose;
- Uncontrolled Spread of Infections;
- Poor Follow-Up with Patients;
- Poor Patient Education;
- Standard of Care Violations;
- Surgery Performed on Wrong Body Part;
- Surgery Performed on Wrong Patient;
- Surgical Mistakes and Errors;
- Tools, Sponges, Clamps Left Inside Patients after Surgery.
Hospitals dedicate entire wards to critical or intensive care patients. Some of the most common names designated to this area of medicine include:
- Coronary Care Unit (CCU);
- Critical Care Unit (CCU);
- Intensive Care Unit (ICU);
- Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU);
- Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU);
- Neuroscience Critical Care Unit (NCCU);
- Overnight Intensive Recovery (OIR);
- Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU);
- Shock/Trauma Intensive Care Unit (STICU);
- Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU).
Critical or intensive care units have special medical equipment, supplies and drugs to assist with the caring of the seriously ill including:
- Analgesics;
- Antibiotics;
- Catheters;
- Drains;
- Endotracheal Tubes;
- Hemofiltration Equipment;
- Infusion Fluids;
- Inotropes;
- Intravenous Lines;
- Mechanical Ventilators;
- Monitoring Equipment;
- Nasogastric Tubes;
- Sedatives;
- Suction Pumps;
- Tracheotomy.
You can reach Personal Injury Lawyer J.P. Gonzalez-Sirgo by dialing his direct number at (786) 272-5841, calling the main office at (305) 461-1095, or Toll Free at 1 (866) 71-CLAIM or email Attorney Gonzalez-Sirgo directly at [email protected].
