Introduction to Critical Care

Critical Care
Critical care nursing is that specialty within nursing that deals specifically with human responses to life-threatening problems. A critical care nurse is a licensed professional nurse who is responsible for ensuring that acutely and critically ill patients and their families receive optimal care.
The critically ill patient
Critically ill patients are defined as those patients who are at high risk for actual or potential life-threatening health problems. The more critically ill the patient is, the more likely he or she is to be highly vulnerable, unstable and complex, thereby requiring intense and vigilant nursing care.
History of critical care nursing
Although there have always been very ill and severely injured patients, the concept of critical care is relatively modern. As advances have been made in medicine and technology, patient care has become more complex.
To provide appropriate care, nurses needed specialized knowledge and skills, and the care delivery mechanisms needed to evolve to support the patients needs for continuous monitoring and treatment. The first intensive care units emerged in the 1950s to provide care to very ill patients who needed one-to-one care from a nurse. From this environment the specialty of critical care nursing emerged.