Intensive Care Treatment for Children
The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at The University of Vermont Children's Hospital is a unique multidisciplinary unit that provides highly specialized critical care for children with life-threatening illnesses or injuries.
The PICU attending physicians are specialty trained in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and care for children ranging in age from infants to young adults. The pediatric intensivists, in collaboration with the pediatric critical care nurses, work within a multidisciplinary team that includes medical and surgical specialists, respiratory therapists, pediatric pharmacists, physical and occupational therapists, child life specialists, social workers, pediatric nutritionists, and imaging and laboratory personnel.
The PICU team believes in family-centered care and that involving the child's family as members of the health care team is vital to the recovery of the child.
A PICU staff physician is always on call and available to answer questions and to facilitate the transfer and admission of patients requiring critical care and intensive monitoring.
Pediatric Critical Care Transport
Also at the disposal of Vermont Children's families is our dedicated advanced life support pediatric transport service. The University of Vermont Health Network Critical Care Transport is a fleet of specially equipped ambulances that are prepared at all times to transfer critically ill pediatric patients from community hospitals in Vermont, northern New York and parts of New Hampshire to the University of Vermont Children's Hospital for advanced care.
Pediatric Critical Care Services at UVM Medical Center
Some examples of the critical care conditions we treat in the UVM Medical Center Pediatric Intensive Care Unit include:
- Sepsis, severe infections
- Meningitis, encephalitis
- Abnormal airways
- Single or multiple organ failure
- Respiratory failure (HFNC, non-invasive ventilation, and mechanical ventilation)
- Cardiovascular failure
- Renal failure (all modalities of dialysis offered)
- Severe blood diseases and childhood cancer
- Pneumonia, bronchiolitis
- Trauma
- Complex surgical problems
- Pediatric general surgery
- Complex orthopedic procedures
- Complex pediatric neurosurgical repairs
- Kidney transplants
- Poisonings, drug overdoses
- Complex severe chronic illnesses
- Complex congenital diseases
- Seizures
- Complex neurological diseases
- Severe bowel disease
- Pancreatitis
- Severe auto-immune illnesses
For more information on pediatric critical care, call the PICU at 802-847-2304.