I work in a small rural hospital. We have a surgeon that flys in once a month to do minor surgeries and scopes. We have one OR that we use for both surgeries and scopes. We do between 5-10 cases per surgeon visit. Most of the cases are scopes. We start with our clean surgery cases first and the proceed to the scopes. Our CRNA does all the sedation for the scopes. We work with 2 RNs in the OR, no tech help. One RN circulates and the other scrubs/assists the physciam. On our surgery days we have 1-2 RNs and one CNA admitting, recovering, dismissing as well as checking in the consult patients that need to be seen.
There are times I could just pull my hair out from frustration by the end of the day.
Our scope patients are put in recliner chairs and taken to the OR and put back into their chairs after the procedure for recovery. Only surgical patients are taken back to the OR on carts. Our average turn over time is 15 - 20 min. from the patient leaving the OR, the room being changed over and the scope being cleaned to the next patient being admitted to the room. Do you think this time is unreasonable??? We spend alot of time waiting on the doc to come back into the OR.
Do you think we are appropriately staffed? If not, how do you think we should staff for what we do.
Also, I would like some thoughts on scheduling scope patients- admission to discharge when you only have one procedure room, minium staff and only 3-4 rooms for admit/recovery use.
Would you like to comment?
