Critical Care Medicine

Critical care medicine deals with conditions that threaten a child's life. These conditions may include a sudden illness, a new injury or an intense flare-up of a health problem.

It takes a team of providers with special skills and a hospital with advanced tools to offer critical care. At Seattle Children's, we have 56 state-of-the-art beds for children who need this kind of care. Three teams provide this expertise - in our pediatric, cardiac and neonatal intensive care units (ICUs). All of our ICUs focus on family-centered care.

• The doctors and nurses in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) care for babies and children with the full spectrum of childhood diseases.
• The experts in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) care for babies and children with heart problems.
• The team in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) cares for babies up to 1 month old who were born early (prematurely) or with a serious condition.