HISTORY OF CRITICAL CARE

CRITICAL CARE NURSING PRACTICE HISTORY OF CRITICAL CARE 1800s Florence Nightingale described the advantages of placing patients recovering from surgery in a separate area of the hospital.

1900s John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore opened a threebed postop neurosurgical intensive care unit.

WWII, shock wards were stablished to care for those critically injured.

The nursing shortage after the war forced the grouping of postop patients into designated recovery areas (birth of PACU).

Technology and combat experiences of health care providers during the wars of the twentieth century provided an impetus for specialized medical and nursing care in the civilian setting.

1950s the new technology of mechanical ventilation and the need to group patients receiving this new therapy (birth of ICU)

Critical care nursing was organized into a specialty only 40 years ago; before that time critical care nursing was practiced wherever there were critically ill pts.

By the 1960s nurses had begun to specialize their knowledge and practice into focused areas such as coronary care, nephrology, and intensive care.