Discharging patient from same day surgery - ambulatory vs wheelchair

[TravlOn]

We are a small hospital OR that does primarily outpatient surgeries. One of our physicians maintains that we should discharge every patient via wheelchair, even those who received only local anesthesia without sedation. Our current policy gives criteria for discharge from PACU, but we have been unable to come up with any policies or standards of care that address this issue. How does your facility handle this issue and what standards of care are you citing for determining the patients' ability to be discharged ambulatory ? We have searched the Internet and have come up empty handed so far. We would appreciate any input that you can give on the issue.

Thank you,

TravlOn

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

Using a wheelchair is pretty standard for D/C for most hospitals except if they are D/C'd,from the ED. It's a CYA thing.

[HTCC]

We try to use a wheelchair for all of ours. However the occasional local or MAC insists on walking out. We walk with them, making sure they get into the car safely.

[dcwang]

I used to volunteer at a major university hospital's outpatient surgery center that included pain management as well. All pts were discharged with wheelchair, it was policy

[Julie1957]

Hi, I work in a day surgery in Australia. We are on the 3rd floor and most patients walk out with their significant others. No real problems at all.

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

Julie, I bet you do not have the trial lawyers in Australia like in the US. There is a lot of waste of time and dollars in the healthcare system in the US because of them.