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ICU Documentation Typing

ICU notes are the most symbol-dense documents in the hospital: vent settings, infusion rates, system-by-system plans, and a daily checklist. The trainer's phrase corpus includes ICU-specific lines, and the presets below load them.

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ICU: system-based plan lines and drips ICU: labs and imaging

Preset links open the trainer with those settings already applied; you can change them afterward.

What makes ICU typing different

A floor progress note is mostly words. An ICU note is numbers with words in between. A single respiratory line might read AC/VC 420 x 18, PEEP 8, FiO2 40%, Pplat 24, and a cardiovascular line norepinephrine 0.08 mcg/kg/min, MAP goal >65. Every one of those requires the number row, slashes, a percent sign, a greater-than sign, and decimals. People who type comfortably on the wards often find their speed halves in the unit, and almost all of the loss is on those keys.

The lines the corpus covers

The Note Phrases category includes interval events, vent settings and weaning steps, pressor and sedation lines, spontaneous awakening and breathing trials, lines and drains, nutrition and glucose targets, prophylaxis, and dispo, in both spelled-out and shorthand forms. With dosing at 100 percent, drug names carry realistic infusion and bolus doses, including rate-based vasopressor dosing.

No acute events overnight · Pplat 24, driving pressure 14 · Continue IVF at 75 mL/hr · propofol 25 mcg/kg/min iv infusion · Ppx: subQ heparin 5000 units TID · Overnight Hgb drop 9.8 to 8.1, transfused 1u PRBC · Nephrology following, no indication for HD at this time

The system-based template

Most ICU notes follow the same skeleton: neuro, cardiovascular, respiratory, renal and fluids, gastrointestinal and nutrition, hematology, infectious disease, endocrine, lines and tubes, prophylaxis, and disposition. Because the headings are fixed, the typing is the content under them, and that content is formulaic enough that shorthand practice pays off quickly. Turn abbreviations on for ICU practice; almost no one writes secondary to in the unit.

A drill for the symbol keys

Turn on only Physiology & Labs and Drugs · Generic, set dosing to 100 percent and error mode to Block, and type for five minutes. This stream is almost entirely lab names with values and drugs with doses, and it isolates the number row, decimal point, slash, and percent sign. Check the per-key heatmap afterward; when those keys stop showing red across a full session, switch back to the full ICU preset.

Abbreviations that are unit-specific

SAT/SBT (spontaneous awakening and breathing trials), RASS (sedation scale), CAM-ICU (delirium screen), MAP, CVP, PEEP, FiO2, Pplat, P/F ratio, CRRT and HD (renal replacement), TF (tube feeds), A-line and CVC, and GOC (goals of care). The general shorthand reference is on the abbreviations page.

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