PACU Scheduling Help

[JoeTheRN]

I am curious if anyone has any input in regards to staffing PreOp, Phase 1 and Phase 2 PACU. Our department is technically just 1 department. But, we have set staffing for each area: PreOp, Phase 1 and Phase 2. Does anyone work in a department where the staff floats to each area? If so, how do you schedule it and do you think it works well?

I feel like we are pigeonholed by only having staff that will work certain areas. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[brownbook]

My old memory is awful, but I think you will get the gist of how we did it. I may be wrong on the start times.

I assume Phase 1 PACU is fresh post op. Where I worked Phase 1 staff were separate from pre-op and Phase 2, but I think you could easily incorporate Phase 1 into how we did it. (Actually they trained us in Phase 1 so we could help out from time to time, but we weren't on their schedule.)

We were scheduled for two months in each unit. Then you'd go to the "next" time, or next unit. Two nurses in pre-op, two nurses in phase 2. Pre-op nurse 1 arrives at 6 set up for and admit pre op patients, second nurse arrive at 6:30. First nurse for phase 2 arrives at 8, second nurse starts at 10.

It was easy peasy....just 4 weeks marked off on the schedule and you knew where you where, what your rotation would be, what hours you'd be working.

It worked great. When, if, you have good team work and since everybody works all units everybody can help out when one area is busy and one area is slow. Also can cover vacations, sick calls, etc.

[azhiker96, BSN, RN]

I've seen it done different ways. At one facility we were cross trained to preop and pacu. In the morning, everyone would start in preop. When the first cases started calling out about 2/3 of the staff would migrate to pacu. When the last case left preop, remaining staff would go to pacu to help with recovery.

At my current facility, some of the staff are cross trained. About once every couple of weeks I start my day early in preop. After the first cases go in I get a short break and then head to the pacu. There I hit the end of the rotation since I've already had several patients.

My first facility did not cross train between preop and pacu however it did have separate phase 1 and 2 areas. If you worked in phase 2 you would be there for the whole shift or until the last outpatient was discharged. If you started in phase 1 you would be there the entire shift.

[RainMom]

Our Phase I nurses are crosstrained in the outpt dept for pre-op & Phase II (discharge). Two PACU nurses are scheduled in pre-op daily at 0600; it works out to usually once per week for each nurse. Our outpt nurses are not crosstrained to Phase I unfortunately.