Care in PICU
Daily rounds
Every day a pod leader will be assigned to your child and they will work with your child鈥檚 nurse to answer all your questions.
Let the bedside nurse know you have questions or issues to discuss and they will arrange for the right person to meet with you.
Each day one of our intensive care consultants will see your child to check on their progress.
These visits are called rounds and occur at your child鈥檚 bedside. Rounds are are attended by the bedside registered nurse, PICU doctors (consultant, fellow and registrar), nurse team leader/access nurse, and a nurse practitioner.
You are welcome to be present and are encouraged to ask questions.
Team handover and huddles take place at the following times each day:
- 7:30am: Nursing and medical handover
- 8:00am: Multidisciplinary team bedside
- 11:00am: Allied health huddle
- 5:00pm: Senior medical handover
You can call us day or night.
When you are at home or outside PICU, phone the main desk on (02) 7825 1171.
You can also contact your child鈥檚 bedside on 7825 15_ _ (bedside number i.e. bed 1, dial 01, bed 10 dial 10) and speak directly with your child鈥檚 nurse for progress reports.
Information is given to parents or legal guardians. If we cannot come to the phone, someone will explain why. We will call you back as soon as possible.
Medical procedures
Sometimes medical procedures take place in PICU.
Some of these procedures are planned and some are emergencies. If a procedure is happening to another child in your child鈥檚 room we will ask all family members of the other children to wait outside the room.
If your child is having a procedure while in PICU, you can discuss with your nurse how we can help you to support your child during the procedure. Each situation is different and a plan for the procedure can be made ahead of time.
Quality and safety
Our aim is to promote a just culture, improve incident management and encourage staff participation in quality improvement initiatives in order to provide safer care for every patient, every time.
The PICU Quality and Safety Committee aligns with .
The PICU team participates in the following activities to improve patient care and keep patients safe:
- Incident Management System (IMS+) reporting and management
- Monthly Quality meeting
- Monthly Morbidity and Mortality review
- Medication safety committee
- Quality improvement methodology training
- Quality Audit Reporting System (QARS) and Quality Improvement Data System (QIDS)
- Collaborative projects with Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) and the Agency Clinical Innovation (ACI)
- Australia and New Zealand Paediatric Intensive care Registry (ANZPICS) data reporting and benchmarking.
Photos and video
While it is ok to use your mobile phone on the ward and we understand that you may wish to take photographs or video footage of your child鈥檚 hospital journey, we ask that you are mindful of the privacy of others and do not include staff or patients and their families in your photos, video records or identify them by name, without their consent.
Please be aware that staff may ask you to stop taking photographs or video footage of your child if it impacts on their work, privacy, or the privacy of others.