Inpatient Care: Cardiothoracic ICU (CTICU)

The 30-bed Cardiothoracic ICU (CTICU) of Rady Children’s Heart Institute provides cardiac inpatient care for people of all ages (from newborns to adults) with congenital or acquired heart disease. It is a unique space within the Hospital solely devoted to all levels of inpatient cardiac care, from admission to discharge, with a focus on family-centered care.

In order to meet the needs of all patients, the unit consists of two components: a CTICU and a cardiac step-down unit (CSU). Staffed by critical care cardiac physicians, advanced practitioners and nurses, 24 hours a day, the CTICU cares for cardiology and cardiovascular surgery patients when they are most critically ill. Many patients are admitted to the unit within hours of being born. The CTICU also cares for patients with heart failure, heart transplants and those requiring assist devices. As patients recover from their critical illness, they progress to the CSU, where their care is continued under the supervision of cardiologists and cardiology advanced practitioners until they are ready to be discharged home.

Newborn infants with heart disease may also be cared for under the close supervision of neonatologists, who are experts in the care of infants, in collaboration with the cardiac team. All 30 beds in the CTICU are capable of functioning as a CTICU-level bed or CSU bed, assuring an appropriate level of care based on the needs of the patient. To ensure continuity of care, the teams that care for patients prior to their procedures continue to care for them in the unit afterwards. And since these teams care for all cardiac patients admitted to the unit, patients who return to the Hospital for subsequent procedures will recognize the doctors and nurses.

A full range of cardiac services and critical care services are provided, including:

Intensive patient monitoring
Lab testing
Radiology exams and cardiac imaging
Ventilation, invasive and non-invasive
Renal replacement therapies, including peritoneal and hemodialysis
Advanced life support therapies, including ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), an advanced technology that circulates blood so that oxygen can be supplied to the body when the heart or lungs are not working

Patients also receive dietary services, social services and child life services.

The state-of-the-art unit was created to care for the growing number of cardiac patients requiring specialized services and advanced technology. Our renowned Cardiovascular Surgery team performs about 400-500 operations each year.

For information on all of our Critical Care services, click here.