Penn Medicine’s Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care specializes in the care of critically injured or perioperative patients.
We provide most of our services in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), a 56-bed, technologically advanced, nationally recognized unit, with three separate nursing staffs and three intensive care services.
The unit’s 7,000 yearly admissions include emergency transfers, critically ill post-operative patients and chronically critically ill patients. We provide services and care for patients with a mix of general surgical, vascular, trauma, transplant, cardiac and neurosurgical needs. ICU stays range from a period of hours to months.
Critical Care Services Provided
We provide three services in the HUP SICU, including:
Our critical care specialists, or intensivists, also care for patients following cardiac surgery in a “step-down” unit in HUP and treat patients in a surgical intensive care unit at Pennsylvania Hospital.
In addition to these five on-site critical care services, we manage and staff the Penn E-lert eICU telemedicine program. Penn E-lert eICU is a leading edge electronic ICU. It provides an additional layer of expert medical and nursing support for critically ill patients located at HUP, Pennsylvania Hospital and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Our Expert Team
Our critical care faculty members are highly trained and experienced in the care of extremely ill patients, which includes the management of the brain, lungs, circulatory system, gut and kidneys.
While their efforts are usually directed towards the cure of disease, our physicians often deal with end-of-life issues when medical interventions are no longer successful. Our specialists work in close coordination with the surgeons to whom the patient was admitted, and are often in direct communication with families and loved ones.
Our intensive care teams are multidisciplinary, and consist of:
- physicians
- nurse practitioners
- nurses
- pharmacists
- respiratory therapists
- various allied health care professionals
The teams are led by faculty intensivists. They work with and educate fellows and residents who rotate through the intensive care units during the course of their training.