Intensive Care Ward

An intensive care ward or intensive care unit is a specialized part of a hospital, a ship's Sickbay, or a station's Infirmary where life-threatening conditions are diagnosed and managed. Patients placed in intensive care typically require some sort of organ support (brain, heart, lungs, etc.) and invasive monitoring and/or treatment. As the name implies, intensive care requires medical care providers to spend more time monitoring and treating than they normally would. Starfleet medical protocols state that ICUs must maintain a patient to critical care personnel ratio of no lower than two to one.

ICUs are designed to give doctors and nurses unobstructed access to a patient's room at all times. Many are laid out in a circular or semi-circular layout, with a fully-manned station at the center. Rooms are equipped with specialized equipment not readily found in a typical sickbay, such as a pulmonary infusor and vascular regenerator. All biobeds are equipped with biofunction monitors, as well as treatment-specific instrument clusters. Rooms are also equipped with instant stasis fields and null-grav environments without any necessary modifications.