May 15, 2009

NEW YORK—The Critical Care Center—a new cutting-edge, spacious, patient- and family centered intensive care unit—was unveiled on the 15th floor of Tisch Hospital at NYU Langone Medical Center. The first patients will begin being treated at the center on May 18, 2009.

"The new center at Tisch Hospital will provide our world-class, critical-care faculty and staff—and especially our patients and their families—an environment more conducive to healing, state-of-the-art technology, more privacy, and the space to accommodate open visiting hours," said Dr. Robert I. Grossman, dean and CEO of NYU Langone Medical Center. "This is the kind of transformed clinical environment we can look forward to, campus-wide, in a few years' time."

Tisch Hospital's new center currently has 18 medical ICU beds, all in private rooms except for one semi-private room. The new center is the first of two renovated wings of the new ICU. Each large, private patient room offers a window allowing natural light, views of New York City, brand new equipment, flat-screen televisions, space for families to visit and staff to work more efficiently. 

The new center is the only ICU in Manhattan with in-house intensivist physicians with advanced critical care board certification specializing in treatment of the most seriously ill patients available 24/7. The center's critical care team also responds to any emergency at a patient's bedside throughout the Medical Center 24/7, including directing cardiac arrest and rapid response teams. The use of intensivists has helped NYU Langone Medical Center earn the Leapfrog Group's "Top 50 Hospital" ranking for quality and patient safety.  

Other ICU patient safety features include computerized charting systems inside and outside each room with multi-patient video surveillance technology. Also, patient simulator technology, with all the characteristics of a real patient, is improving patient safety in the ICU by allowing medical students and residents the opportunity to train in the real environment they will be practicing medicine. This patient simulator generates computerized models of real medical crises in the ICU, teaching teamwork, leadership and medical care skills.

"This new ICU is a long awaited dream for the critical care team," said Dr. Grossman.  "The environment of the ICU will now match the high standards and quality of care that the critical care team provides to our patients every day."

Construction on 17 additional surgical ICU beds, all in private rooms except for one semi-private room, will begin in June. When the renovations are complete, the center will have a total of 35 beds.

Tisch Hospital, the Medical Center's flagship facility, opened in 1963 and is scheduled to undergo an extensive makeover over the next several years. Future renovations to Tisch Hospital will be made possible by the anonymous gift in 2008 of $110 million by a family of longtime benefactors to the Medical Center.

Contact:
Lauren Woods
Office of Communications and Public Affairs
NYU Langone Medical Center
(212) 404-3555 (office)
(917) 301-5699 (cell)
lauren.woods@nyumc.org

About NYU Langone Medical Center
Located in the heart of New York City, NYU Langone Medical Center is one of the nation's premier centers of excellence in health care, biomedical research, and medical education. For over 168 years, NYU physicians and researchers have made countless contributions to the practice and science of health care. Today the Medical Center consists of NYU School of Medicine, including the Smilow Research Center, the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, and the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences; the three hospitals of NYU Hospitals Center, Tisch Hospital, a 726-bed acute-care general hospital, Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, the first and largest facility of its kind, and the Hospital for Joint Diseases, a leader in musculoskeletal care; and such major programs as The Cancer Institute, The Child Study Center, and the Hassenfeld Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.