Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit

At the CHOC cardiovascular intensive care unit, we understand children with heart conditions need very specialized care. CHOC offers the only dedicated pediatric CVICU in Orange County – a brand new, state-of-the-art facility encompassing more than 23,000 feet on the sixth floor of Bill Holmes Tower.

The 24-bed CVICU’s increased capacity allows CHOC to care for more complex cardiac patients, particularly those requiring surgery and ECMO, a life-saving technology for the sickest of patients. The unit is staffed by all cardiac-trained intensivists, nurse practitioners and registered nurses, who are prepared to provide complex heart patients the specialized care they need.

The CVICU has earned the Pediatric Beacon Award for Critical Care Excellence, an award presented by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). This recognition represents CHOC’s extraordinary commitment to high quality critical care standards, and dedication to the exceptional care of patients and their families.

The CVICU features:

• Spacious private rooms to accommodate families, a family lounge and a playroom to encourage patients to get up and start physical rehabilitation as soon as possible
• Four rooms with adjacent anterooms to allow for surgery or ECMO without needing to move the patient to the operating room
• Specialized equipment for cardiac patients, including real-time, machine-learning predictive analytics displayed in each room to warn clinicians if a patient’s health could decline; near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) monitoring to non-invasively measure oxygen saturation; continuous venous oximetry as a marker of cardiac output; and EEG monitoring for postoperative seizures

The staff in our CVICU is dedicated to providing our patients the very specialized care they need around the clock. When a new patient comes to the CVICU straight from surgery, operating room staff work one-to-one with their CVICU counterparts to make sure all of the patient’s immediate and long-term needs are met and that crucial information is passed along to each staff member who will be providing the patient’s care.

Specialized Cardiac Care for Babies

The Infant Cardiac Care (IC3) team at CHOC treats infants in our new, state-of-the-art Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU)—one of the only dedicated pediatric and neonatal CVICUs in Orange County. This eight-bed unit delivers comprehensive care for babies with congenital heart defects, including those born prematurely or low birth weight, or with complex conditions, using advanced technology like full ECMO support and bedside surgery, if needed.

Our NeoCVICU fosters multidisciplinary collaboration among cardiac neonatologists, pediatric cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, and neonatal-cardiac nurses during daily rounds. The team is actively researching ways to improve neurodevelopment and reduce long-term complications. Led by physicians dual-trained in neonatal and cardiac intensive care, this unit is a leader in neonatal heart care.

In partnership with UC Irvine Health, CHOC launched its first senior fellowship in neonatal cardiovascular ICU and hemodynamics—one of only two in the western U.S.—to advance this emerging subspecialty focused on optimizing cardiac care for newborns with structural heart disease or hemodynamic instability.

Committed to Patient and Family-centered Care

At the Heart Institute, we understand that when a child is ill and needs hospitalization, the entire family is affected. We invite CVICU parents to participate in daily multidisciplinary team rounds and encourage them to be active in the decisions that are made regarding their child’s care.

Our compassionate and caring child life specialists support each patient and his or her parents and siblings by providing guidance on what to expect as the patient recovers. Specialists also bring activities, toys and movies while patients recover and help motivate children who may be reluctant to get out of bed after their procedure. Child life specialists even work with our tiniest infants to make sure they are held and played with while their family members are not able to be with them. In short, our child life specialists help kids stay kids while at CHOC.