COUNTYWIDE : Hospital Opens New Neuroscience Unit
A new unit to care for patients with serious illnesses or injuries to the nervous system has opened at UCI Medical Center in Orange. The unit is the first of its kind in Orange County, hospital officials say.
The Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit has seven beds, and the patients in the unit are treated by a team of experts, according to hospital officials. The nervous-system ailments treated in the unit include strokes, aneurysms, traumatic head injuries and brain tumors.
“This unit combines sophisticated medical, surgical and nursing care with the ability to more efficiently carry out research studies,” said Dr. Ronald Young, acting chairman of neurological surgery at UCI Medical Center. “It makes a range and depth of care possible for patients that they wouldn’t receive elsewhere in the community.”
Young said the unit also offers an ideal setting for neurosciences studies at UCI, one of the world’s top centers for research on the brain and the nervous system. Neuroscience researchers at UCI Medical Center take part in nationwide studies of brain tumors and their treatment. UCI researchers also are widely recognized for significant studies of stroke, pain, acute neuromuscular conditions and evaluation of coma, he said.
The new unit complements the existing 17-bed neuroscience acute care unit at the medical center. Both units are now on the same floor, and, according to medical center officials, together they bring “a full range of neurosurgical and neurological care into one area of the hospital.”
Dr. Ken Yonemura, assistant clinical professor of neurosurgery, and Dr. Kenneth Nudleman, chief of clinical neurology, are the co-directors of the Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit. The nurse manager for the unit is Laura Bruzzone.
Bruzzone praised the opening of the new facility. “It allows us (nurses) to provide a high level of continuity of care with a heightened understanding of the needs of these patients,” she said.
