AACN to recognize Lefkofsky PICU with ICU Design Citation

May 10 2013

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) will present the ICU Design Citation to the Lefkofsky Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago during the 2013 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, Boston, May 18-23.

The Lefkofsky PICU receives the award to recognize the patient- and family-focused elements incorporated into the design of the 40-bed medical and surgical ICU for patients ranging from newborns to young adults. The PICU is on the 16th floor of the 23-story, state-of-the-art Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital. The hospital opened in June 2012 on the downtown Chicago campus of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, replacing the former Children's Memorial Hospital.

The new construction allows the team to focus on promoting safety and security in a healing environment while demonstrating efficiency and delivering excellent patient care. Families are greeted and screened as they arrive on the unit and are banded with a color-coded ID band that matches their child's. They are then announced and buzzed into the locked unit.

The PICU's single-patient rooms were developed from a clinical and family perspective. All rooms are private with designated family, patient and provider locations. The layout offers patients and families more space and privacy, including more room for family members to sleep at the bedside.

The Family Great Room brings the feeling of home to the ICU and underscores how the unit's design helps caregivers meet families' needs during stressful times. The Great Room offers families a place to share a meal in the dining area and provides siblings a play area.

Members of the hospital's Kids' Advisory Board played a pivotal role in suggesting designs and amenities for patients, including a CT scanner that resembles a yellow submarine.

The coveted award — co-sponsored by the Society of Critical Care Medicine, Mount Prospect, Ill., and the Committee on Architecture for Health of the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco — recognizes intensive care units that successfully combine functional design with humanitarian care delivery.

SOURCE American Association of Critical-Care Nurses