PACU hold times

[Manatee111]

I'm interested in the amount of time scheduled surgical patients wait in the recovery room for rooms to become available in community hospitals near major cities. 1 hour? 3 hours? 5 hours? How long is the longest you've ever held a patient in the recovery room waiting for a bed? How long do extended stay patients occur in the PACU? And finally, is there a patient washroom in your PACU?

[Isabelle49]

The longest stay was overnight! There were no beds available. There is a bathroom connected to the PACU that patient's can use. General stay is PACU is no less than 30 minutes, except at shift change.

[wanderlust99]

I don't work in a community hospital, but a large teaching facility with over 900 beds. The wait time varies from immediately available on request to waiting up to 6 hours in the PACU. I would say most days I work we are waiting for beds. So I'd say average wait is 1-2 hrs. This week I had two patients wait 4 hrs each though.

The hospital is just full. These are mostly scheduled surgeries. We have to wait for discharges.

[Manatee111]

Thanks for input. The waiting for beds is quite frustrating. Sometimes the wait is so long 5+ hours with NO bathroom. Some people really struggle with bedpans. Do you allow patient out of the carts? This is my first ever PACU job. It's like a whole new world of nursing obstacles.

[emain86]

In an ideal world where you have enough Staff those patients can be monitored by 1 nurse on a different side where you allow family to come up and can get them a tray. Once patients are out of phase 1. I usually just do Q4 hr vital signs and 1 full assessment every 4 hours.

According to ASPAN standards you can have up to 5 patients. ( its really not bad at all) for 1 nurse. you dont have to do anything for em once they are observation. If/when we don't have a seperate nurse to take the patients.. I've got better things to do than q15 minute vitals so I just put observation whent hey are ready. turn off the light and let them sleep.

You can let anyone up out of bed to use bathroom. most of the time its just a hassle. just use your judgement if you think they are going to be fine or not. You can always stay with them in restroom. You are generally worried about fall more than anything. Do you think after that appy was on the floor for 5 hrs they would be okay to get up and go to the bathroom? If so then you could get them up.

[wannabecnl]

I've seen people wait 2-3 hours for a bed. We recently closed a floor, which has made shorter waits more common (before we had few patients waiting for beds, but it could be a long time--now we have lots of people staying an extra 30-60 minutes).

If the patient is waiting to go to phase II (if their rooms are full), we ask the phase II LNA bring us a recliner for them to move into--more comfortable. I've had dinner trays sent to the PACU for inpatients who are waiting to go upstairs. Another solution to problems you mentioned is to have a bedside commode available. We keep one on hand for people who aren't ready to go to the floor or to phase II but don't need to (or can't) use the bedpan.