Members of the CCU team are pictured at the bedside in a Level 3 inpatient room.
August 28, 2026
The addition of critical care Level 3 beds within the Coronary Care Unit supports patients and families, strengthens critical care capacity, and improves patient flow across London Health Sciences Centre
For patients arriving at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) with complex cardiac needs, care can move quickly from the Emergency Department or Catheterization Lab to the critical care unit for monitoring and ventilation, and then onto recovery in an inpatient unit. Now with the opening of three net new Level 3 beds in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU), LHSC is helping to smooth the care journey for cardiology-focused patients and their families.
The new beds, made possible through provincial funding from Ontario Health, add ventilated care capacity within the CCU at University Hospital. They are designed to support critically ill cardiac patients who previously may have required care in a traditional critical care unit before transitioning to a cardiology-focused unit as their condition improved.
"We didn't have the physical space needed to add beds within the critical care unit at University Hospital, so we started to look at what other centres were doing to support level 3 care for this patient population and found an example where they had incorporated advanced care within their CCU," says Rachel Rushton, Director, Cardiac Care at LHSC. "We were confident that a similar model could work here and the benefits that we've seen to-date have been threefold, with benefits to our patients and their families, to our CCU team members, and to our broader patient flow."
Benefits to our patients
With this new model, patients can be cared for by a cardiac-focused team from the most acute phase of their illness through recovery and, in many cases, discharge to home with appropriate supports in place. For patients and families, remaining within a familiar care environment and being supported by many of the same team members can bring comfort and confidence during a stressful and uncertain time.
"Being managed by a team that specializes in cardiac care in one location is important," says Dr. Daniel Durocher, Cardiologist and Critical Care physician at LHSC. "Ultimately, we can provide advanced critical care support for patients while keeping their care journey focused within a cardiac centre."
Benefits to our people
To make these new beds possible, CCU nurses who were already trained to care for Level 2 patients received additional education and hands-on preparation, including classroom learning, simulation labs and buddy shifts in the ICU. Clinical educators, respiratory therapy educators, Critical Care Outreach Team members, respiratory therapists, dietitians, physiotherapists and ICU nurse mentors have all helped support the transition.
That deep collaboration has also created new opportunities for staff development. Nurses working within cardiology can build from foundational skills to Level 2 and Level 3 care, supporting some of the hospital’s most complex cardiac patients, while also following patients through a broader portion of their recovery journey.
For CCU team members, that continuity has been especially meaningful. Rather than caring for patients only during one stage of illness, staff can see the progress patients make as they move from critical illness to recovery. The result is a less siloed experience for both patients and care teams, with a stronger sense of connection across the full inpatient journey.
Benefits to our capacity
The new beds also support improved patient flow across LHSC by adding critical care capacity for cardiac patients at University Hospital. By caring for appropriate ventilated cardiology patients within the CCU, the hospital can better preserve traditional critical care capacity for patients with other urgent needs, including medical and surgical critical care. The model helps better ensure patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
From a regional perspective, the Level 3 CCU beds strengthen access to advanced cardiac support at LHSC, a tertiary care centre that serves patients from London and across southwestern Ontario. The expansion helps advance the organization’s broader goal of increasing critical care capacity by leveraging existing space and expertise in a new way.