Obs Unit?

I've seen plenty of obs units that are extensions of the ED - usually patients who may not meet criteria for admission but the doc doesnt want discharged yet (often chest pains, SOB, etc). I've never heard of an obs unit that is an extension of an ICU, however.

I've seen plenty of obs units that are extensions of the ED - usually patients who may not meet criteria for admission but the doc doesnt want discharged yet (often chest pains SOB, etc). I've never heard of an obs unit that is an extension of an ICU, however.[/quote']

Oh ok. The director told me it was a fast paced unit with high patient turnover so it's not like a regular med-surg flood?

I work in the ED, and at our hospital, obs is for mostly chest pain patients who do not appear to be having a serious cardiac event, but because of their symptoms or history, the MD wants to watch them for 24 hours to make sure nothing develops. Cardiac enzymes are drawn serially, they are monitored by tele, and other diagnostic tests are sometimes run.

It was explanied to me that the obs patients are "not really admitted to the hospital" since they don't meet criteria. Not sure if this is medical criteria or reimburser criteria. Anyway, they are considered to be outside of the hospital, which I don't fully understand, and I'm sure the pts don't either.

I can see how it would be fast paced, with a lot of daily admits and discharges. Let us know what it is like. I wish you well in your new job!

I used to work on an obs unit. The high turnover is because a patient can only be considered an observation patient for 24 hours and then they have to either be discharged or changed to inpatient status and admitted to a regular floor or the hospital will not be reimbursed.

you will be doing admit/discharge documentation all day and look for changes in condition that would allow patient to be admitted. This can be anything from unrlieved pain to a heart attack

Thanks everyone!!! I worked in a rural hospital on an adult and peds med-surg and tele unit where we actually did obs as well. It was mainly a med-surg unit so I don't really know what it would be like to have 20 straight obs patients.

jeangarc - I was on a med-surg trauma floor with an obs room. They were the 4 most critical patients who needed to be under constant supervision of a nurse. Because of the acuity, the nurse got just those 4 patients as opposed to others who had 5-7. Our obs patients typically had trachs, decreased LOCs or some type of head trauma but they WERE inpatient.

I would be curious to see 20 of these patients too...