New ICU opens at Wake Med North

A new Intensive Care Unit at Wake Med North opened July 9.

Kellie Babson, a nursing manager at Wake Med North, said that the hospital has been sending patients who needed a higher level of care to the main Wake Med Hospital on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh.

But with the advent of this ICU at Wake Med North, more patients will be able to remain closer to home at the Wake Med North facility, she said.

The ICU was expected to be full the day of its opening.

The unit has nine beds, and will offer a wide range of medical intensive care services.

“We can do most everything,” Babson said.

Some patients will still have to be transferred to the New Bern Avenue facility for some kinds of specialized care.

For instance, the facility on Falls of Neuse does not have a cardiac catheterization lab.

“We still anticipate having to transfer a few patients to our main campus,” Babson said.

Each shift at the ICU will include five nurses caring for patients and also a nurse in charge.

Medical care on the unit will be provided by experienced intensive care doctors. The doctors come from Wake Med’s existing intensivist team.

Babson has worked with Wake Med for 24 years and has been at Wake Med North four years. Wake Med North opened in 2015.

Valerie Barlow, senior vice president administrator at Wake Med North, said Emergency Department space at the facility is strained.

“We have space constraints every day,” Barlow said. “We are holding patients in the Emergency Department waiting for beds to open up or either to transfer to the New Bern Avenue campus. This gives us nine more beds to put patients in every day.”

Dr. Jimmy Lakey, medical director for the Wake Med North ICU, is an intensive care specialist who has been with Wake Med 16 years. He said some services, such as dialysis for ICU patients, will not be available at this time, so some patients will still need to be transferred.

But he said he anticipates adding dialysis at some patient, and some other services may be added as well. The unit will not be a cardiac ICU or neurological ICU, so those patients will be transferred.

Many more patients will be able to remain at Wake Med North, however, and that is a good thing, Lakey said.

Sicker patients will be able to remain at Wake Med North because the ICU is available as a backup if they need it, he said.

“Having the ICU capability really enhances everybody else’s capabilities,” Lakey said.

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