About
A department of MyMichigan Medical Center Saginaw
What is an Intensivist?
Intensivists are physicians who direct and provide medical care in a hospital's intensive care unit (ICU), working with the attending physicians and other staff such as critical care nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, nutritionists, rehabilitation services, social workers, case managers and more.
An intensivist has completed a primary residency and board certification in a specialty such as surgery, internal medicine, anesthesiology or pediatrics and an additional two- to three-year fellowship and certification in critical care medicine.
What do Intensivists Do?
Intensivist improve quality of care in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Patients in the ICU generally have life-threatening illnesses or conditions such as cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, strokes, severe trauma or resistant infections. Because of their unstable conditions, these patients must be monitored much more closely. Studies have shown that having an intensivist act as the team leader in providing critical care definitely improves the quality of care for these patients.
The program follows the evidence-based guidelines for care established by the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM). The SCCM critical care model calls for a multidisciplinary team approach that has a well-documented record of:
- Improving patient survival rates and quality care
- Decreasing procedure complications
- Promoting medication safety
