Intensive Care Unit

Cabell Huntington Hospital's Intensive Care Unit provides specialized care for adults with serious illnesses. Patients requiring individualized medical, surgical or heart care may stay in the unit, which also provides long-term care for patients in a critical or trauma state.

The unit has 20 beds and a staff of skilled and experienced registered nurses. The unit is located in the North Patient Tower, and it features large, comfortable private rooms with flat screen televisions, wireless internet access and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Each room is fully equipped with electronic monitoring systems and lifesaving emergency equipment. One of the biggest advantages to the design of the rooms is the change from a traditional headwall at the head of the bed to a column design. The move offers more flexibility in positioning a patient's bed, as well as the equipment required for treatment.

The rooms feature breakaway doors, which swing open wide for easier transport in and out of patients' rooms to undergo examinations, such as CT or MRI scans, elsewhere in the hospital. The ICU also includes six isolation rooms for the most immune-compromised patients.

Nurses keep patients' charts updated using computers located in every patient room or by using terminals located outside every two rooms. The unit reflects a philosophy of decentralized nursing, with smaller nurses' stations much closer to the patients bedsides.