Progressive care units (PCUs) are serving as a safe portal for patients who are transferred from the intensive care unit (ICU). Recently, patients who are now cared for in PCUs were cared for in the ICU. However, health-care systems have changed. In the past decade, challenges for resources occurred, which, combined with the aging population and accompanying healthcare risks, have limited the ICU environment to extremely ill patients.
PCUs in each hospital have a predetermined mission with a written structure for care. Specific admission criteria determine what patients are appropriate for care in the PCU. Specialty units may be for telemetry, with cardiac focus, or ventilator-dependent patients and those with complex pulmonary needs. Classification tools are used to record the amount of time nurses spend caring for a specific patient; for example, the amount of time to bathe the patient, get him or her out of bed, ambulate, and administer...