Intensive care unit - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An intensive care unit (ICU), critical care unit (CCU), intensive therapy unit (ITU), or intensive treatment unit (ITU) is a special part of a hospital. Usually, people that are very sick are sent there. They need to be looked at by a nurse or doctor very closely in case they get more sick while at the hospital.

Some ICUs may work with only one type of injuries.

History[change | change source]

In 1854, Florence Nightingale went to the Crimean War. There it was important to separate seriously wounded soldiers from less-seriously wounded. Nightingale reduced death rates from 40% to 2% by creating the concept of intensive care.

Because of a polio epidemic, Bjørn Ibsen established the first intensive care unit in Copenhagen in 1953.^[1] Patients with polio require more ventilation than normal; this is why Ibsen set up a special unit for them. The first person to use this idea in the United States was Dr. William Mosenthal, a surgeon at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.^[2]

References[change | change source]

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