In 2007, Cayuga Medical Center opened a state-of-the-art critical-care facility, housing our Intensive Cardiac Care Unit and our Emergency Department.

The design of this building was conceived with one goal in mind: to place our very sickest, highest-risk, complicated patients at the center of their own personal, specialized care teams.

Our ICCU accomplishes this goal by providing an environment that meets the very latest cardiac care and intensive care design recommendations for the highest standards of care — an environment in which our patients can recover and their families can support the recovery process. Our critical care medical staff, nurses, and technologists have access to more and better technology, including the best monitoring system available. The nursing station affords staff with an unobstructed view into every patient room. And the rooms are large and light, bringing in sunlight and a view of the outdoors that help lift the spirits of acutely ill patients.

• Care in our ICCU is provided by intensivists (physicians who specialize in critical care medicine and pulmonary medicine).
• They work collaboratively with medical staff specialists and subspecialists in internal medicine, cardiology, neurology and neurosurgery, general surgery, and nephrology.
• A highly trained, experienced team of critical care nurses and respiratory therapists works around the clock to monitor vital signs, provide hands-on care, administer healing therapy, and keep loved ones up to date.

In addition to considerable scientific and technical expertise in critical patient care, members of our ICCU team understand the importance of compassion and empathy in helping patients and their families through a high-risk illness. Our doctors and nurses appreciate the effect serious illness has on the family unit. They understand fear and anxiety — and they know you count on them to listen and to answer your questions.

The high quality of care in Cayuga Medical Center’s Intensive Cardiac Care Unit was recognized with the 2006 New York State Patient Safety Award for Large Hospitals. From the very initiation of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 100,000 Lives Campaign, the professional staff in our ICCU has worked to implement IHI recommendations. This kind of commitment stems from the shared vision that our patients are at the center of everything we do.