Pediatric CU remodel promotes family-centered care

Thanks to a generous gift from Food Lion, the VCU Medical Center’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) recently unveiled its new, expanded and completely modernized facilities. According to PICU director, Dr. John Mickell, chair, Pediatric Critical Care, the Food Lion PICU embraces the concept of “family-centered care” in the management of its patients. “Having a family member present at the bedside decreases a child’s anxiety and promotes recovery,” explains Dr. Mickell.

The new unit features 12 individual patient rooms, a lounge for care providers, a family resource area, family shower areas and a dedicated procedure room — all in kid-friendly colors: periwinkle, lime green and navy blue. The space also features two dedicated negative pressure rooms for patients requiring special air filtration. Each room has an outside window and has been designed to include “protected family areas” with a chair that can be pulled out into a bed. Rooms also feature flat screen televisions and VCR/DVD players, donated by the Ronald McDonald House. The charity also helped to furnish a playroom.

“The idea with the new space is to make the families and patients more comfortable,” explains Mary Walker, PICU nurse manager. “Our average patient stay is four days but some stay much longer than that. The new colors and furniture will present a home-like feel.”

Last fall, the Food Lion PICU celebrated 25 years of exemplary service to central Virginians and beyond. With more than 950 admissions in the past year, the Food Lion PICU handles most of this region’s highly complex and critical pediatric conditions, including acute respiratory failure, septic shock, major trauma and post-surgical care for patients needing cardiac surgery, neurosurgery or organ transplantation. The Food Lion PICU is the region’s only Level I pediatric critical care facility, meaning that 24-hour, in-house specialty care is available for any type of emergency. “What we have here is a tremendously effective concentration of specialty physicians from a broad range of specialties that are available round-the-clock for our patients,” explains Dr. Mickell.

“Ultimately, we are all working toward the same goal: to get these children better and back home with their families.”