PACU nurses being floated to ICU?

[Florence NightinFAIL]

Have any of you seen this or it happened to you?

Due to the coronavirus scare, elective surgeries are being halted and some PACU nurses are being quickly oriented and floated to ICU units to help with the shortages.

Can they say no?

I would like to hear from personal experiences.

[CVVH, MSN, RN]

14 hours ago, murseman24 said:

Sorry, I know this kind of dialogue isn't helpful. I just finished CRNA school and would LOVE to see some of the perioperative and OR nurses take care of critically ill patients and hold some personal responsibility for their actions. Amidst all the politics and power struggles between MDAs and CRNAs, the nurses made me want to throat punch them the most, by a long shot. So flipping rude and power hungry. The last I'll say about it (probably). I know everyone isn't like this and all the help you can get is great.

In my NYC hospital PACU/OR/EP/IR nurses are being asked to function as ICU nurses (with guidance from the actual ICU nurses). Many/most of the EP/IR/PACU nurses haven't been ICU nurses in years, and most of the OR nurses have never been ICU nurses, so there's a lot of crash training/guidance from ICU nurses going on as they are being asked to function in this capacity due to lack of cases. If the patient is too critical or the non-ICU nurse is not comfortable, they'll have them function as helpers. They're also doing this with stepdown/floor nurses, where an ICU nurse/stepdown or floor nurse dyad will have 3-4 ICU pts and the floor nurse will be the helper and do tasks within their scope.

[murseman24, MSN, CRNA]

24 minutes ago, CVVH said:

In my NYC hospital PACU/OR/EP/IR nurses are being asked to function as ICU nurses (with guidance from the actual ICU nurses). Many/most of the EP/IR/PACU nurses haven't been ICU nurses in years, and most of the OR nurses have never been ICU nurses, so there's a lot of crash training/guidance from ICU nurses going on as they are being asked to function in this capacity due to lack of cases. If the patient is too critical or the non-ICU nurse is not comfortable, they'll have them function as helpers. They're also doing this with stepdown/floor nurses, where an ICU nurse/stepdown or floor nurse dyad will have 3-4 ICU pts and the floor nurse will be the helper and do tasks within their scope.

Are you seeing any providers from outside the unit come to help manage patients? Like non-ICU docs or NP/CRNAs?

[CVVH, MSN, RN]

6 minutes ago, murseman24 said:

Are you seeing any providers from outside the unit come to help manage patients? Like non-ICU docs or NP/CRNAs?

Yes, non-ICU providers in areas that have low volume are also displaced to help manage covid patients in ICUs and elsewhere. Many of the ORs are now ICUs, and the providers there include CRNAs who function as the ICU residents/NPs/PAs would. Surgeons and other non-ICU physicians are now functioning as ICU attendings/"fellows" as well. All receive a crash course in ICU knowledge relevant to their roles.