“If exercise and good sleep are important to a healthy child at home, why is that any different here in the hospital?” That was the question that led to the creation of PICU Up!, a Johns Hopkins program, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, which aims to mobilize young patients early in their stay in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).

In the decade since PICU Up! was launched, the program has been adapted by 200 hospitals across the globe and has been implemented directly in more than 25 children’s hospitals across the United States, says Children’s Center anesthesiologist-in-chief Sapna Kudchadkar, program creator and director (below).

She and a team of other specialists from 10 different disciplines met weekly for over a year to conceive PICU UP!, she says, motivated by the observation that children in the PICU at Johns Hopkins and across the country “were heavily sedated and not really getting out of bed early in their critical illness.”

Intent on changing the culture, she says the team created a multiprofessional model that gets patients up and moving as soon as possible “by optimizing sleep, minimizing but making effective sedation, and minimizing and preventing delirium.” The program’s guiding credo? “Illness shouldn’t mean stillness.”

“[PICU Up!] has pushed us out of our comfort zones and really encouraged us to question our norms, but as a result of that we’ve seen incredible improvements in the inpatient experience for our patients,” says Stephanie Morgenstern, pediatric clinical nurse specialist.

Says Kudchadkar, “We are so excited to see what has evolved over the last 10 years.”