"Cohabitation" between NICU and PICU.

Neonatal and paediatric intensive care are usually provided in distinct units, characterized by highly specialized staffs dedicated either to critically ill newborns (NICUs) or to critically ill children (PICUs). However, such a model may be not suitable or even applicable to all medical organisations or to different local needs. Actually, in Europe there are several PICUs which routinely provide care also to neonatal patients, including extremely preterm infants. Conversely, there are many NICUs which occasionally, or systematically, admit also young infants and toddlers. Whilst many aspects of modern neonatal care do resemble those routinely used in the paediatric intensive care setting, several clinical issues are unique to each respective sector and cannot be easily translated to the other one. In order to guarantee the best quality of care, NICU doctors and nurses should acquire adequate competence and skills, by means of focused multidisciplinary training programmes, as well as extensive exposure to a wide paediatric case mix.