UK HealthCare has completed its new 64-bed cardiovascular inpatient unit, one of the largest cardiovascular intensive care units in the nation, on the 8th floor of Albert B. Chandler Hospital's Pavilion A.
“This new unit doubles our capacity to treat Kentucky's sickest heart patients and brings the best technology medicine has to offer right to a Kentucky heart patient's backyard,” said UK President Dr. Eli Capilouto in a media release on the unit's unveiling.
Patients will be transitioned to the new facility on Dec. 7. The new unit, which includes 32 intensive care beds and 32 progressive care beds, features its own central monitoring service station, attended by dedicated trained staff members. The floor also features an imaging suite for echocardiography, designed to minimize patient transfers for testing. Existing imaging areas will be reassigned for outpatient use, thus reducing wait times for both inpatients and outpatients. Also, the new unit will use new barcode technology for administering patient medications.
In the interest of educating patients on heart health, interactive televisions in patient rooms will allow users to access videos on their condition, their treatment and healthy lifestyle choices. Patients will also be assisted in their rehabilitation by the hospital’s CATwalkers, a group of physical therapy students and volunteers who help cardiac patients to walk at least once per day.
"It has long been our goal to be Kentucky's resource for highly complex quaternary care so that patients don't have to go out of state for the best treatments available,” said Dr. Michael Karpf, UK’s executive vice president for health affairs, in a media release. “This new unit brings the highest level of cardiac care available anywhere on one floor, in an environment that's efficient for our staff and conducive to healing for our patients."
Business Lexington contributing writer Dan Dickson will take a more detailed look at the new cardiovascular unit and how it affects patient care in the health-care focus section of the magazine’s upcoming February issue.