Preadmission Testing RN's

yankeecamper · Jan 29, 2003

Wow, I am surprised at how few people responded to this in two years time.

Our surgical services dept. has a preadmissions dept. It is staffed with 1 full time, and 3 part time nurses, and a nurse's aide. They do ALL the preop nursing H&P's, ordered lab work, and EKG's. They have anesthesia guidelines to follow for the appropriate diagnostic testing. On average they see 12 - 18 pts/day.

The PAT nurse's have a huge problem with receiving doctor's orders from the surgeons prior to their visit. Do you have the same problem? The nurses spend a couple hours a day on the phone chasing doctors and office staff for the things they need in order to get a chart ready for the day of surgery.

funnynurse · Jan 29, 2003

We have a lot of standing orders from surgeon's which makes our job easier, but even though we have these, we still call about 2-3 offices a day for orders on patients we will see where the office staff is to fax over orders. These surgeon's offices are very busy and sometimes the staff forgets about us! Usually one call is all it takes, but there are a few we have to call atleast twice. Some offices tell us the patient will bring orders with them, but of course they never do, or tell us they never received orders from the offices!

Any way, this is just another comment: All acute care nurses at my hospital recently received a raise, but we did not get one because we are not considered "acute care". We work very hard at our jobs but are very underappreciated!

susanmary · Jan 29, 2003

This is my dream job ... it is sooo hard to get into as all the "old timers" with the most experience get the positions. Clearly, not a stress free position -- but I would give an arm & a leg for this job......... Truly, I would.

funnynurse · Jan 29, 2003

I only had about 2 years experience when I started, due to job burnout! Thank God I found it, it helped me not to leave the nursing profession

funnynurse · Jan 29, 2003

No, it is not stress free, contrary to popular belief. I had a Dr. tell me one day that I was "just playing nurse". IT is a different type of stress

vintagecarol · Mar 20, 2003

I currently work in our Health Centers PreAdmission Department.

This has been my home for the last 5 years and I love it! We have 10 RN's and 2 Patient Care Techs and are very busy. Our Department has been open for about the last 8 years and the RN's were in on the planning from the start:The PreAnesthesia

Clinic is where patients come in 1 day to 3 weeks before there scheduled surgeries, the RN takes a history,pre and postop teaching, draws labs,ekg's and any xrays then the Anesthesia Doctor also visits with them. Education is a big part of the process since we see all types of surgeries from Open Hearts-Orthopedic patients, it is very successful. Most of our Surgeons use this service, the benefit is there are no delays on Surgery day and the Patient is very prepared. We also do outpt IV therapy-infusions,transfusions,lab draws from central lines,medications,therapuetic phlebotomy etc. We also do preop calls for the patients that do not use our PreAnesthesia Clinic and obtain historys and give instructions over the phone. Previous to working in PreAdmissions I was a floor nurse for seventeen years

and I can honestly say I now have the good fortune of time-Knowing that my patients have my full attention makes my job very enjoyable.

nowplayingEDRN · Apr 10, 2003

Originally posted by yankeecamper
Wow, I am surprised at how few people responded to this in two years time.
Our surgical services dept. has a preadmissions dept. It is staffed with 1 full time, and 3 part time nurses, and a nurse's aide. They do ALL the preop nursing H&P's, ordered lab work, and EKG's. They have anesthesia guidelines to follow for the appropriate diagnostic testing. On average they see 12 - 18 pts/day.

The PAT nurse's have a huge problem with receiving doctor's orders from the surgeons prior to their visit. Do you have the same problem? The nurses spend a couple hours a day on the phone chasing doctors and office staff for the things they need in order to get a chart ready for the day of surgery.

I work in a small MTF who's primary business is from ambulatory procedures done to both active duty military and retirees. We have 1 pre-op nurse. However, each surgical service has a standard preprinted set of orders that they require on their patients. These orders are entered into the computer system and the patients are then given both verbal and written instructions on where to go to get the required testing completed. The pre-op nurse then puts the charts together the day before surgery and they get sent to the Ambulatory Surgery Dept. There an aid and a LPN assemble the charts to make sure that all the testing is complete and if not, these tests get completed the morning of the procedure. It is a very nice job but when tere are lots of patients to pre op it can be hectic. Our per-op nurse's biggest complaint is findint the doctor du jur to read the EKGs. Sometimes simple topics get passed over for the supposed meatier discussions. lol :)

Christie

Sarah, RNBScN · Apr 10, 2003

If you give me your email I will have our PAC (preadmission clinic) nurse email you what they do.

Sarah

nancya · Oct 16, 2003

We are currently re-vamping our pre-admission testing area. Could you please tell me how many patients per 8 hr shift you see and the average time spent with each patient. This would include registration, time with nurse, blood draw, ekg and teaching.

I am so glad I found this site. We are very frustrated with doctors offices not sending orders and patients not prepared for pre-admission testing. Most people think it is just bloodwork.

Also, staffing at the site. I work in a 450 bed facility. Just to give an idea of the size of the hospital.

vintagecarol · Jan 7, 2004

In our preop testing department, the time spent chasing preop orders down has greatly decreased because most of the orders are faxed from the Doctors office. We still sometimes have to call 1-2 days ahead to get them faxed. Also, standing orders are a great help-we have a voice mail message center and take the preop orders off of the phone.

kathyann · Jul 22, 2004

I currently work in our Health Centers PreAdmission Department.
This has been my home for the last 5 years and I love it! We have 10 RN's and 2 Patient Care Techs and are very busy. Our Department has been open for about the last 8 years and the RN's were in on the planning from the start:The PreAnesthesia
Clinic is where patients come in 1 day to 3 weeks before there scheduled surgeries, the RN takes a history,pre and postop teaching, draws labs,ekg's and any xrays then the Anesthesia Doctor also visits with them. Education is a big part of the process since we see all types of surgeries from Open Hearts-Orthopedic patients, it is very successful. Most of our Surgeons use this service, the benefit is there are no delays on Surgery day and the Patient is very prepared. We also do outpt IV therapy-infusions,transfusions,lab draws from central lines,medications,therapuetic phlebotomy etc. We also do preop calls for the patients that do not use our PreAnesthesia Clinic and obtain historys and give instructions over the phone. Previous to working in PreAdmissions I was a floor nurse for seventeen years
and I can honestly say I now have the good fortune of time-Knowing that my patients have my full attention makes my job very enjoyable.

We also do all of these modalities, but are a small hospital doing about 60 surgical/endoscopy cases per month. I was wondering if the patients are scheduled to come in at your hospitals for per-ops, or just walk in?

We are having an issue with the walk ins, and I feel we need to set up a different system..Thanks:)

Joannatigercub · Feb 9, 2018

Yea sometime we have trouble getting order . We have a General Surgery Pager that goes to the poor PA on duty that day and they get stuck putting in the orders for us. We do the best we can to get Doctor orders but if no orders we make out an occurrence report & move on they can get the labs in Pre-OP day of surgery. If it messes up the OR times its the Doctors that get chewed on not us.