Intensive Care Unit - Introduction

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Kaoshiung General Veteran Hospital was established in March 1995. Since then, the state-of-the-art equipment and experienced medical staffs have not only ensured quality services to patients, but have also set up excellent Critical-Care-training environments for nursing staffs, interns, residents, fellowship and respiratory care technicians. Besides the training of Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS), the scheduled teaching classes including morning meeting, journal clubs, case conference, medical image conference, and many symposiums are held regularly in order to promote and to share the advancement of medical knowledge.

This ICU in our hospital has area of 2650 square meters that contains six stations. Each situation has its own central "computer" monitors. From the central monitors, one can easily observe the bedside data from all patients. And the patients' vital signs can be observed at anytime through these monitors at the bedsides and in the stations.

In addition, every room has a large window which allows natural sunlight and provides the patients with relaxing scenery views. We believe such natural atmosphere alleviates patients' stress and lightens up their moods, and hence facilitate patients' recovery. These kinds of humanistic designs are comparable, if not better, to many ICU standards in other developed countries.

Furthermore, the Reverse-Osmosis system is set up at each bed for hemodialysis, and each ICU has two isolation beds with independent air-conditioning and negative pressure environments to prevent cross-infection in the ICU. The resident are on 24-hour shifts, which is capable of providing the patients with immediate care.

Many trainings relevant to critical care will "continued" to be held by our department collaborating with other medical societies in order to continuously improve diagnostic methods and management in critical care medicine. As a result, we are confident that our patients will get the best care possible from our outstanding medical team and friendly environment.