Critical Care

As part of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, members of the Critical Care Medicine staff provide diagnosis, treatment, advanced life support, and surveillance for a wide variety of critically ill children with diverse medical and surgical problems from Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and southern New Jersey. Highly trained physician, nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, rehabilitation, social work, and respiratory care staff provide state-of-the-art advanced life support in a family-centered environment respectful of patient and parent needs. Every attempt is made to care for patients in private rooms. All rooms are furnished with equipment designed to minimize the need for invasive studies.

The intensivists engage in cooperative academic and clinical relationships with Christiana Care Health System and Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine. The Intensive Care staff balances academic and clinical approaches to treatment with participation in laboratory, pre-clinical, and clinical trials of evolving therapies to maintain a state-of-the-art approach to critical care.

The Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children also offers a Critical Care Fellowship Program.

Services Available:

• A 22-bed pediatric intensive care unit that admits more than 1000 patients per year
• A dedicated pediatric critical care transport team that promotes safe and efficient transport of critically ill children to the intensive care unit using ground, helicopter, or fixed-wing vehicles
• 24-hour coverage by dedicated pediatric experts who provide expertise and support for the full range of pediatric acute and chronic illness
• Multidisciplinary support of physicians, nurses, and respiratory care practitioners
• Regular interface with pharmacy, nutrition, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, and social work staff members
• Noninvasive and invasive mechanical ventilation therapies including BiPAP, negative pressure ventilation, volume and pressure limited ventilation, and high frequency oscillatory ventilation
• Renal replacement therapies including all forms of dialysis and hemofiltration
• Advanced programs in pain, sedation, paralysis, and medication withdrawal programs including patient controlled analgesia, regional anesthesia, and continuous inhalational anesthesia via mechanical ventilation
• A full range of noninvasive and invasive monitoring
• Interfaces with magnet programs in orthopedics, stem cell transplantation, solid organ transplantation, neuromuscular disease, genetics, and cardiovascular surgery
• Extensive consultation and integration with pediatric rehabilitative services
• Provision for family-centered care during hospitalization
• Inclusion of the family early in the discharge planning process

Typical Diagnoses/Problems:

The pediatric intensive care unit staff support patients with a wide variety of medical and surgical conditions including:

• Acute and chronic respiratory failure (bronchiolitis, asthma, pneumonia, ARDS, etc.)
• Airway obstruction (croup, epiglottitis, subglottic stenosis, larygomalacia, foreign body)
• Sepsis/Septic Shock
• Circulatory shock
• Acute renal failure
• Hepatopathy
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Diabetic ketoacidosis
• Severe electrolyte abnormalities
• Dysrhythmias (supraventricular tachycardia, myocarditis)
• Neuromuscular weakness (botulism, spinal muscular atrophy, muscular dystrophy, hydrocephalus)
• Hematologic and oncologic problems (sepsis, tumor lysis syndrome, solid organ transplant, mediastinal mass, severe anemia)
• Bone marrow transplant support
• Neurological problems (scoliosis, myelomeningocele, increased intracranial pressure, seizures, hydrocephalus, encephalopathy)
• Severe Poisoning
• Solid organ transplant support (liver and renal transplants)
• Trauma

Additional Resources:

• Members of the Critical Care staff will answer patient and family questions and refer patients and families to a variety of support groups as needed, or upon request.
• Information about pediatric critical care medicine can also be found on the Pediatric Critical Medicine Web site.