In 2020, we treated about 213 coronavirus patients in intensive care at HUS, with excellent results by international comparison. There were about 2,200 other patients requiring intensive care in the course of the year.
There were about 2,200 other patients in intensive care during the year. The mortality rate in intensive care for all patients was 6.6%.
The arrangements for the care of critically ill coronavirus patients formed the greatest challenge in intensive care in 2020. In addition to the facilities set up at Meilahti and Jorvi Hospitals, in the first wave of the pandemic we were forced to create additional capacity at the Surgical Hospital, where we re-equipped the surgical unit for coronavirus patients requiring intensive care. We began caring for coronavirus patients at the Surgical Hospital on April 9, 2020.
Personnel retraining for intensive care
In the spring, we quickly introduced retraining for nursing personnel and physicians in order to be able to staff the intensive care units where coronavirus cases were treated.
The training was executed quickly and in smooth cooperation, across departmental boundaries. In all, we retrained 700 nurses and 21 specialists to work in the intensive care units.
Apotti deployment
Apotti, our new patient information system, was deployed in the intensive care units during 2020, as in other HUS departments. The intensive care and burn unit at Jorvi (U2) made a smooth transition to Apotti in February, and the remaining HUS intensive care units adopted the system in October.