UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital’s new cardiac and PCU units welcome patients

Aug. 20, 2020
UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital Charge Nurse Zach Karn stands near a patient bed at the newly-renovated cardiac unit.

UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital opens a renovated wing today on the fourth floor, including 24 patient rooms with advanced technology to provide extraordinary care.

The 12-room progressive care unit, a step between medical/surgical and intensive care, serves patients who require more frequent monitoring and specialized, critical care staff.

The 12-room cardiac unit, previously on the fifth floor, complements the hospital’s full array of cardiac services, which include a new, second cardiac catheterization lab that opened on the first floor earlier this year.

Both units are connected to the UCHealth Virtual Health Center in metro Denver, which monitors patients’ status 24/7, analyzing vital signs and other data to detect potential complications.

This is the first PCU at UCHealth to offer the Virtual Health Center’s remote monitoring via video and audio by intensive care nurses, along with prescriptive analytic tools. This allows collaboration of care with the PCU nurse directly caring for the patient, with the VHC ICU nurse providing an additional layer of safety. This technology was funded by the Northern Colorado Foundation.

Rooms on both units include oxygen and vacuum regulators to provide critical care-level service. By ensuring a solid foundation of staff who are trained in critical care assessments and techniques, PVH provides a higher level of care.

The renovated wing has ample space for provider documentation, staff work space and clinical integration stations for staff to discuss and chart the patient care.

The numbers

  • 24 monitored patient rooms: 12 for cardiac unit, 12 for progressive care unit.
  • Two patient rooms are negative-pressure isolation rooms.
  • Four patient rooms are completely reconstructed and reconfigured in accordance to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

About the author

Robert Allen loves meeting new people and learning their stories, and he's continually inspired by the patients, staff and providers he meets at UCHealth.

A journalist for 12 years, he joined UCHealth after reporting and editing at the Detroit Free Press. He is the author of Fading Ads of Detroit, a book exploring connections between classic Detroit brands found on ghost signs and in the personal histories of Detroit residents. He previously reported for the Fort Collins Coloradoan, Summit Daily News and Montrose Daily Press.

His outdoor adventures include scrambling summits, hunting powder stashes via snowboard and rafting whitewater. He earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University and MBA from Colorado State University. He lives in Windsor with his wife, Rachel, and their obstinate pug, Darla.