Cardiac ICU Typing Practice

Choosing Cardiac ICU in the Specialty menu mixes a CCU and CVICU vocabulary pack into the general medical stream. It is built for the high-acuity cardiac side of critical care: cardiogenic shock, mechanical support devices, the first night after cardiac surgery, temporary pacing and post-arrest care.

Open the trainer with the Cardiac ICU pack

Hemodynamics and devices First night after cardiac surgery Drips and codes

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

What cardiac ICU notes are made of

Typing in a cardiac ICU is mostly numbers with a conclusion attached. One progress note can carry a full pulmonary artery catheter set (RA, PA pressures, wedge, cardiac output and index, SvO2), a cardiac power output, the Impella P-level and flow, three drip rates and a lactate trend. Post-op cardiac surgery notes start from the OR handoff: grafts, bypass and cross-clamp times, then a line for each drip, pacing wire and chest tube.

Nurses chart device parameters every hour, along with chest tube output, leg checks on the cannulated side and the pacemaker settings verified at each handoff. Arrest and post-arrest notes need exact times, rhythms, shock counts and temperature targets, and neurologic prognosis is written in a set order. The shorthand is its own dialect: LIMA-LAD, SVG-OM1, CPB, PAPi, POAF, TVP, iNO, V-AV.

What the cardiac ICU pack adds

The pack has 900 new items and emphasizes about 300 general items. It leaves ventilator and sepsis detail to the ICU pack and clinic cardiology to the cardiology pack, and covers what only a cardiac unit types. About 460 note lines follow shock staging, device settings and alarms, weaning, post-cardiotomy bleeding and tamponade, temporary pacing, post-MI complications, TAVR and aortic surgery recovery, and early transplant care:

• Biventricular failure with a PAPi of 0.7 and RA to wedge ratio of 0.8
• Suction alarms with CVP 4, 250 mL albumin given and P-level reduced to P5
• ECMO 3800 rpm, flow 4.1 L/min, sweep 3 L/min, FdO2 60%
• HeartMate 3 speed 5400 rpm, flow 4.6 L/min, power 4.2 W, PI 3.1
• Temporary pacemaker DDD at 80, atrial output 10 mA, ventricular output 10 mA
• Sudden drop in chest tube output with rising CVP and falling cardiac index, concerning for tamponade

About 85 read lines cover PA catheter profiles such as RA 14, RV 48/14, PA 50/28 mean 36, PCWP 28, CO 3.4, CI 1.8, plus TEE and bedside echo, device position, TEG, arrest ECGs and continuous EEG. Dosing strings cover about 80 drugs, weighted toward inotropes, vasopressors, vasodilators, antiarrhythmics and anticoagulants, with post-bypass bleeding and vasoplegia agents such as protamine and methylene blue.

How to practice

Most of the difficulty here is the number row, slashes and decimals. Start with Note Phrases, Physiology & Labs and Radiology & Path Findings, Abbreviations on, and Block, which stops at each error until you fix it. A hemodynamic set with one wrong digit is a wrong set, and Block makes every slip visible. Once your accuracy holds above about 95 percent, switch to Cascade and add Procedures and Anatomy for a session that reads like a first night after cardiac surgery.

For drips, turn on both drug chips and set the dosing slider to 60 or higher, so drug names carry infusion strings in mcg/kg/min, units/min and ng/kg/min. Term frequency on Realistic keeps common items like norepinephrine and milrinone ahead of rarities like levosimendan. Short sessions of five to ten minutes on most days work better than one long one, and the per-key heatmap shows which symbols cost you time. If you also use the ICU pack, alternate the two; they overlap little by design.