BUSINESS MEMO:

Southeast Missouri Hospital's Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit, a component of the Regional Heart Center, has received recognition from three national organizations.

The unit was recently awarded the ICU Design Citation, given by the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Healthcare.

The award includes a plaque, $1,500 and a complimentary registration to each of the sponsoring group's annual conferences.

Southeast's competition submission included an extensive written narrative of facilities and equipment, and a video prepared by the Hospital's Marketing and Communications Department, detailing features of the CTU.

CTU nurse manager Maggie Schuch said the award recognizes the unit that best demonstrates commitment of creating healing environment, to promoting safety and efficiency, staff retention and satisfaction, and attention to innovative, unique anesthetic and creative design design features.

The 12-bed CTU is designed for open heart surgery patients immediate post-operative phase of care.

Since the fall of 1984, when Southeast initiated its full-service program of cardiac care, more than 3,000 open heart surgeries and 23,000 diagnostic cardiac cath and cardiac intervention procedures have been performed by Heart Center surgical and catheterization teams.