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The Alfred Hospital Intensive Care Unit is one of Australia's leading Intensive Care Units, admitting approximately 2000 patients per annum. It is a university attached quaternary referral centre, providing State Services for heart & lung transplantation (including paediatric lung transplantation), artificial heart technology, extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), burns and hyperbaric medicine. It also provides Victoria's Adult Cystic Fibrosis and Pulmonary Hypertension services.

The Alfred is one of two centres providing state services for adult trauma, HIV and bone marrrow transplantation (autologous and allogeneic).

The Haemophilia, Haemostasis and Thrombosis Service is the only adult service in the state of Victoria caring for patients with haemophilia and other severe bleeding disorders. It is accredited as a training site by the World Federation of Haemophilia.

In 2009, the ICU is funded for 31 ICU beds. The average occupancy of the ICU is 36 patients with a mix of ICU and HDU. Approximately 2000 patients are admitted per annum.

The patients are divided into three pods, each pod being managed during each day by an ICU consultant, a senior registrar, a junior registrar and a resident who provide medical care within the ICU . A separate ICU consultant and senior registrar coordinate all referrals to the ICU, attend medical emergency calls throughout the hospital and in conjunction with the ICU Liaison Nurse review patients who have recently been discharged from the ICU. This team is also responsible for trauma calls and managing critically ill patients in the emergency department and operating theatre recovery. They also attend the daily bed management meeting and the weekly cardiac conference and cardiothoracic meeting. A further team consisting of a consultant, two senior registrars and three junior registrars manages patients overnight with ICU Liaison Nurse coverage being available until midnight.

In 2009, the Department employs 16 consultants (14.2 EFT) and 34 junior medical staff (13 senior registrars, 15 junior registrars and 6 residents ). Many of the junior registrars and the residents are on rotation from other disciplines.

Carlos Scheinkestel is the medical director. There are 4 deputy directors:
Jamie Cooper who is in-charge of research, Andrew Davies who is head of Trauma, Andrew Hilton who is in-charge of Cardiothoracic and Tim Leong who heads the General ICU and is in-charge of Quality Improvement.

The nursing team is managed by Julie Willmott (ICU Nurse Manager) and assisted by Nicole Lukauskas (Clinical Nurse Manager - Operations) and Wendy Grant (Clinical Nurse Manager - Quality and Risk) .

There are 15 associate charge nurses, 15 team leaders, 8 clinical nurse educators, 3 patient access nurses and 2 Equipment nurses.

The Clinical Nurse Educators provide ongoing support and education to all staff seven days a week between the hours of 0800hrs and 1800hrs. In total, the unit employs approximately 300 nurses, excluding nurse bank.

The yearly budget for ICU exceeds AUD 42,000,000.

The department has a very active and productive research programme with a team of dedicated research staff. Since 2000, the department has been associated with
AUD 359,83,143 worth of research grants including AUD 21,589,141 NHMRC, ANZICS and Victorian Trauma Foundation.

Since 2000, the department has produced 37 book chapters and 241 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

There is also a dedicated data management team, including a software developer and the department is proud of its many innovative IT solutions and developments.

The ICU has close links to Monash University departments of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Medicine and Surgery.
ICU nursing is associated with Latrobe University with whom we run a collaborative post graduate certificate/diploma in Advanced Nursing (Intensive Care).

In November 2008 we opened our new state of the art 45 bed ICU located next to the helipad, above the emergency department and adjacent to the operating theatres, the hyperbaric chamber, radiology and nuclear medicine.