Your Hospital Stay
Several nursing units at both John C. Lincoln Hospitals provide highly specialized, attentive care to our heart patients.
Our two critical-care units are designed to treat patients with the most serious heart conditions. They are:
- The Critical Care Unit (CCU) at John C. Lincoln Deer Valley Hospital and
- The Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital.
Nurses in both units have had specialized training in cardiac care, including advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), balloon pump care and open heart care. Each unit has a dedicated nurse educator who provides ongoing training on the most current clinical procedures and protocols.
Demonstrating our commitment to quality, low patient-to-nurse ratios at these units ensure that our patients receive the care and attention they deserve. The ratio is one patient per nurse for patients who are on ventilators after surgery or who are unstable, and two patients per nurse for stable, non-ventilator patients.
Both critical care units care for surgical and non-surgical heart patients. After undergoing open heart surgery, patients bypass the surgical recovery area and are brought directly to the CCU or CVICU to begin their recovery. Patients may also be admitted to the units after experiencing a heart attack or another major heart condition that doesn’t require surgery.
Other Important Elements of Heart Care
Patients stay in the CCU or CVICU for an average of three to four days. From there, they are transferred to our Progressive Cardiac Care Units.
Telemetry Units provide around-the-clock monitoring of heart care patients following surgery.
And once a patient is able to stand, he or she will begin Phase 1 of Cardiac Rehabilitation, to regain strength and keep lungs healthy.