NIH CC ICU Guide
Admitting Services
Find the Admitting PI / Service
Ptinfo > Demographics/Visit
Entering Orders
Who Enters Orders?
Daily Schedule
| time | task |
| 06:00 | AM sign-out |
| 08:00 | AM Rounds start$^{a,b}$ |
| 10:30 | Micro rounds (review cultures with ID/Micro staff) |
| 13:00 | CCMD conferences (Zoom)$^{c}$ |
| 16:00 | PM rounds |
| 18:00 | PM sign-out to overnight fellow |
$^{a, b}$Round first with Peds Intensivist from Children’s National Hospital.
$^{c}$Attendance is required. Attending or NP holds the ICU phone
Weekend Specifics
Start rounds at 8:00am with the post-call fellow and CCMD attending.
Saturday: Friday PM fellow and NP will share responsibility for writing notes for all the patients on Saturday AM.
Sunday: The Saturday post-call fellow is responsible for writing notes for all patients on Sunday after midnight. If it is too busy, then the on-coming AM fellow needs to be informed to write them.
Other meetings
Tuesdays at 1:00pm - ICU Interdisciplinary meeting (Webex) includes social work, rehab, spiritual care, pharmacy, nutrition, and bioethics
Virtual Radiology Rounds with Dr. Arlene Sirajuddin, Fridays at 11am
Presenting on Rounds Presentation
Writing Notes
H&Ps
ICU does not write H&Ps; they primary team does.
We write a transfer / accept note, largely copy-pasted from the admitting team's note.
Progress Notes
Admissions
Pediatric patients
All pediatric patients admitted to the ICU (including postops) are to be staffed by the Pediatric Intensivist from CNMC. You must notify them of any admissions or consults
See Amion (PW: ccmcnmc) to see the most updated schedule of Attendings
Consults/Upgrades
If on arrival to a consult:
Patient is Crashing
Needs immediate care (intubation, pressors etc.)?
CALL A CODE BLUE so you can get more help/equipment right away
Not Crashing, but Needs ICU Bed
Call the ICU charge nurse for a bed, and ask the floor nurse to call report
Apart from ICU charge and floor RN being aware of move, we need this get a patient to ICU list:
Patient stays in place; Does NOT need ICU
Outside Admissions
We do NOT write H&P; primary team does
We write: Critical Care Transfer/Acceptance Note
Must Haves for outpatients
All patients need ATV (Admission / Travel Voucher)
After ATV is in, we call Admitting and tell them this is a STAT ICU admission
do NOT enter orders until the patient to gets on the ICU census
Admission Orders
We do not put in admission orders – primary team does.
Instead, we specify reason for transfer (see #1 below) and add any ICU-necessary suborders (see #2 below)).
1) ICU Visit Reason: CCMD III - Admission Order
2) ICU Admission Orders: CCMD III - Admission Orders or CCMD III - Pediatric Admission Orders
Triage Responses
Code Blue
Code team: ICU fellow, x2 ICU RNs, RT, ICU pharmacist, surgery fellow (central access / cric)
Code equipment: code cart, portable ultrasound
Airway: If needed, you can ask for the glidescope from the ICU.
If patient is visitor or employee, must go to Suburban via NIH ambulance; default is BLS, so must specify if ACLS bus is needed
To get an ALS ambulance:
Tell the BLS paramedics that you need an ALS ambulance
Have a low threshold for calling for an ALS ambulance - don’t send patients with chest pain or syncope on the BLS ambulance
If it seems warranted, call a report to the Suburban ER 301 896-3880. Otherwise just give report to the EMS team
An alternative triage option for employees who need only short term monitoring is to triage them to our occupational medical service (OMS)
STEMIs
NIH Cath lab team is not always available for emergency procedures
Orthopedic Surgery
Vascular Surgery
Difficult Airway Response Team (DART)
Activated during code blue and brings you DART Cart
ENT, Anesthesia, Surgery Attending also responds if in house
Brain code
MUST activate code blue AND brain code
Bleeding or mass effect: page Neurosurgery
Ischemic / LVO: page Suburban Stroke Team 301-896-3100
Rapid Responses
Non-emergent clinical change
REQUIRES:
Massive Transfusion Protocol (MTP)
| Expected preparation times |
| item | time |
| uncrossmatched pRBCs | 15 min |
| crossmatched pRBCs | 45 min |
| platelets | 15 min |
| plasma | 40 min |
| cryo | 40 min |
Runner Logistics: During day time hours, Messenger/Escort will run blood from Blood bank and bring MTP cooler
CRIS order: MTP
Order STAT labs
after discussion with Transfusion Fellow, order blood products
Consider ordering TEG (Thromboelastography, hemostasis)
How Do I Order
Medication orders
Order all new meds STAT or now or with a defined start time- otherwise the first dose could be scheduled anytime in the next 24 hours.
Careful when you discontinue/reorder, your next dose might be scheduled too soon or too late. Always figure out the appropriate start time and select “QxH”.
Utilize CCMD order sets for medication orders (vasopressors, antibiotics, sedation, etc.)
Order antibiotics as STAT if you want them given right away. We track the time between the order and when it is administered (should be <60 min) use CCMD I - STAT antimicrobials
Lab orders
Daily labs should be ordered for 4 am
Use the repeat function for serial labs, time them all so that the cycle starts at 4 am
Make all lab orders STAT or give them a time, turn around time on all orders should be STAT. Frequently, labs ordered as routine do not seem to get done.
Specimens for drug levels must be accompanied by recs with time of last dose and draw time.
Delete old unused lab orders, otherwise they collect and things get confusing
Diagnostic Radiology
| study | method |
| CT scan | Page CT tech (17226) to request same day/STAT study, THEN put in CRIS order after you get approval with a time |
| MRI | Place order and call MRI Charge Tech (240-507-4676) to request same day study |
| Ultrasound | Place order and call Ultrasound Tech (301-594-8430) to request study |
| XRAY | Place order and page XRay Tech (17237) to request study |
After Hours (17:00 or weekends)
For
any radiology studies, page the XRay tech
Xrays, non-contrast head CT or a non-contrast non-high-res chest CT will be done right away
Contrast CT, ultrasounds: you will need to speak to the Radiologist on-call, and the on-call tech will be called in; this may take an hour
ECHOs
For same-day TTE, enter order and call ECHO lab (301-435-6038)
Weekends: enter order and page tech on call
Transfers out of ICU
Find out from Charge RN what unit the patient can transfer to and if patient needs Telemetry
Complete the order/med reconciliation prior to transfer (d/c/modify ICU specific orders) and place transfer order: Transfer: Inpt to Inpt Unit
Verbal signout is usually given to the primary/surgical teams during morning rounds EXCEPT for Urology, Solid Tumor, Lymphoma, and HIV/AIDS Malignancy; these services are also followed by the Inpatient Hospitalist team and they need to be paged to give verbal signout
Modify your Critical Care SOAP Note and type “Transfer Note” under Document Topic
Complete the section Transfer/Accept note details
Cosign the receiving provider (usually the Attending or Fellow) and CCMD Attending once document is complete and if any modifications are made
Patient Deaths
DC Summary Writing
patient in ICU < 14 days, the primary team writes this
patient in ICU > 14 days, ICU writes
Death Certificates: Admissions will call you to discuss the death certificate process
PVCS (Vascular Access Service)
Lines
Central lines: policy is all lines are done with full barrier precautions and an ultrasound. The VAD nurses are also happy to teach you how to place PICC lines- just ask if you have time.
CRIS note for Central and Arterial lines: Central VAD Insertion
Bronchs
Move the patient to one of the negative pressure rooms (room 6 or 12)
Enter Micro orders: CCMD IV - Procedures: Respiratory Micro (not bronchoscopy procedure)
Fill in the extra information required in the cytology order
Submit your orders (or you can place orders linked from the Bronchoscopy procedure note). Then your note will show exactly what you ordered.
Stickers should print: put them on the specimen or in the bag with the appropriate specimen, make sure there are patient labels on the containers
Before 17:00: hand deliver the specimens to the micro lab and cytology lab (tube system and transport services are not reliable for difficult to obtain specimens)
After 17:00: hand deliver the specimens to the micro lab and the cytology fridge located in lab
CRRT
CRIS Order: CRRT/Prismaflex
IR aka Special Procedures
Misc
Restraints (medical/surgical – NOT behavioral health) Order and a Restraints Progress note must be completed every 24 hours
Essential Phone Numbers
| Department | Instructions |
| Admissions | 301-496-3141 |
| Anesthesia nights / weekends | 301-913-6453 |
| Anesthesia call room | 301-435-8207 |
| Blood Bank, Accessioning | 301-496-4506 |
| Blood Bank, Transfusion Medicine Fellow | 240-534-9559 |
| CT, front desk | 301-402-4066 |
| CT, tech pager | 17226 |
| ECHO lab | 301-435-6038 |
| ICU | ICU: 301-451-0567\\ICU Fellow: 301-256-5774\\NPs: Nancy: 202-560-2331; Therese: 202-413-0286; Patricia: 240-762-2663; Rashidah (Saturdays): 301-728-6023\\Nutrition (Stacie): 301-771-1209\\Respiratory Therapy: 301-913-6081 |
| IR | Front desk: 301-402-0256 |
| Laboratory | Chemistry lab: 301-496-3386 |
| Laboratory | Hematology lab: 301-402-2171 |
| Laboratory | Micro lab: 301-496-4433 |
| MRI, Front desk | 301-496-0026 |
| MRI, Tech | 240-507-4676 |
| OR Front desk | 301-496-5646 |
| Pharmacy | Janell: 301-832-1538\\Willy: 240-762-3633\\Pharmacy Main: 301-480-6337 |
| Radiology | Body (all modalities): 301-832-5970\\Neuro: 240-743-8862\\Nuclear Medicine: 301-496-5675\\X-ray Tech pager: 17237 |
| Ultrasound, Tech | 301-594-8430 |
| VAD | 301-594-8430 |
| Children's | 202-476-5000 |
| Suburban ER | 301-896-3880 |
| Page Operator | For all other services, call 301-496-1211 or send pages through http://102pager.nih.gov/ |