[cowpoke_rn]

I'm sure everyone in PACU is experiencing CCOF (critical care overflow) due to no bed vacancy in their hospitals. I partly just wanted to vent a little. We have 18 slots in our PACU and yesterday they were all full. 6 were CCOF (with curtains piled everywhere blocking your view of the room, CCOF family members all over the place who just burst into the room without warning, In House MD's who can't find the patients because they only know that the patient is held somewhere in PACU, phlebotomists and xray techs can't find the right patient, phones ringing off the hook looking for patients, the CCOF nurses won't pick up the phone to save their life, tons of medications are dropping out of the tube system, you can hardly get the stretchers through) and nobody can get a bed!!!!
Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

[Charity]

You mean you have CCOF nurses?? We have to recover and do the ICU thang. Actually, we have more of a med-surg overflow problem here. Floor patients waiting on rooms. WHY do they operate when they KNOW the house is full? These poor souls actually think that a room has been reserved for them because that is what their surgeon told them. And we get to be the ones to tell 'em otherwise.

Medications from pharmacy rarely appear, because pharmacy can't find the patient. We have to go get it from another unit. (We have no tube system, they do). As we have a locked unit, we have to buzz family in and out all the time when we "open up the ward" and allow visitors in. And heaven save me from floor paperwork!

[jsully13]

I FEEL YOUR PAIN! We are constantly asked to hold Cath Lab and ICU patients when there are no ICU or Post beds open. There is nothing I hate more than checking ACT's and pulling sheaths! I also found out today that they might possibly start CALLING US IN (overnight, on the weekends, etc.) to take care of ER PATIENTS who don't have rooms! I could MAYBE understand this if we were staffed 24 hours, but we aren't. I've never worked in the ER, but our "manager" says that since we all have critical care backgrounds that we are qualified to do so. This is the same manager who told us in a meeting 2 months ago that we should not be expected to come in when we are on call to assist anesthesia with blood patches. But we can be called in to take care of patients who have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with our department? ARGGGGGG!!!! Why is it that PACU is the dumping ground?

[cowpoke_rn]

You mean you have CCOF nurses?? We have to recover and do the ICU thang

These are not post-ops, they are patients from the ED that need ICU but there are no beds. They put them in the PACU because we are a large room and have monitoring capabilities. We do however have to hold our post-op's that need ICU too. Then we just keep getting backed up.
If I was a patient having an elective surgery and I knew that the beds would be this difficult to get before I came to the hospital....I'd go home Thanks for letting me vent . I went to work today and all the CCOF were gone

[canoehead]

PACU has to have a locked door, and limited visiting IMO.

Dan you dedicate an extension to CCOF nurses so they pick up for their patients and you pick up for yours?