Post Op. Nurse Escorts.

Specialties Operating Room

Published

Dear Theatre/recovery colleagues, I need your help. I work as a sister in a busy theatre recovery unit and at present we are experiencing long delays in discharging our patients back to their designated wards. Our present system involves registered ward nurses collecting their patients when contacted by a member of our team, however due to staff shortnesses and busy workloads, the ward nurses are sometimes delayed for in excess of one hour. This causes a huge backlog of patients and often results in the unit being closed to any further admissions from theatre. I am therefore trying to research the effectivness of using either designated escort nurses or the recovery team as escort nurses. I would be very interested to hear how other NHS Trusts manage this system and also from our oversea's friends.

Many Thanks,

Form Clare Lou.

:coollook: P.s. This is my first thread, I hope I've done it right. (Where's the spell check when you need one?)

Hi Clare, we have two systems. At designated times of the day when we know the wards are not too bad, after report, etc, etc, we have the ward nurses come to theatre. Then when we know that could pose a problem we have two job sharers come in to act as escort. Thats usually at lunch and tea time. We dont really have a problem with this system although I have never heard of any 100% completely problem free solution.

Specializes in Home Health Care,LTC.

Welcome Clare you did post just fine. Don't worry about spell check we all make the errors. No one says anything. Sorry I can't help with your ? but good luck. Just wanted to welcome you to allnurses.

Angelia

Over in the u.s, the floor nurses go with a nurses aide to get the pt in recovery. This nurse must have telemetry experience if the patient is on a monitor. If the floor nurse is delayed, the recovery nurses may bring the patient up, but they are never happy about it. It usually takes at least 2 people with the cart because of iv's, monitors ect... bye :):)

Dear Theatre/recovery colleagues, I need your help. I work as a sister in a busy theatre recovery unit and at present we are experiencing long delays in discharging our patients back to their designated wards. Our present system involves registered ward nurses collecting their patients when contacted by a member of our team, however due to staff shortnesses and busy workloads, the ward nurses are sometimes delayed for in excess of one hour. This causes a huge backlog of patients and often results in the unit being closed to any further admissions from theatre. I am therefore trying to research the effectivness of using either designated escort nurses or the recovery team as escort nurses. I would be very interested to hear how other NHS Trusts manage this system and also from our oversea's friends.

Many Thanks,

Form Clare Lou.

:coollook: P.s. This is my first thread, I hope I've done it right. (Where's the spell check when you need one?)

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Over in the u.s, the floor nurses go with a nurses aide to get the pt in recovery. This nurse must have telemetry experience if the patient is on a monitor. If the floor nurse is delayed, the recovery nurses may bring the patient up, but they are never happy about it. It usually takes at least 2 people with the cart because of iv's, monitors ect... bye :):)

We have the opposite. When they make the PACU assignments for the day they assign a nurse and an aide as "transporters" that take pts. up to the med-surg floors. The aide assigned to PACU does the same things day after day, but they rotate the nurses.

Over in the u.s, the floor nurses go with a nurses aide to get the pt in recovery. This nurse must have telemetry experience if the patient is on a monitor. If the floor nurse is delayed, the recovery nurses may bring the patient up, but they are never happy about it. It usually takes at least 2 people with the cart because of iv's, monitors ect... bye :):)

I never worked in a PACU with that system- wow! Great for PACU!

The PACUs that I worked in had transporters/orderlies pick stable patients up to go to OR and bring them back to the floors. Report was done over the phone prior to transferring a patient.

The only time an RN went along for transport was if the patient was on telemetry or an ICU patient of any kind. Those patients were dropped off by their floor RNs (with or without CNA or transporter assistance) and brought back by PACU staff.

Gotta tell you, I would never work in a PACU that made us do all the transporting both ways. No time!! I never MINDED transporting- I minded getting stuck staying 2 hours late because of shift change and having to get the room ready when I got there - but bringing the patient back was part of the job. Getting them to the OR was not.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Orderlies get our pts. to the OR, unless it's a child and/or a sedated pt., then it has to be a nurse.

In our PACU we transport our own pts to the floor(Ward) with an orderly. The other PACU nurses keep an eye on our other patient. We occasionally call report and send the patient without a RN, but only to the outpatient area. There is not any way the floor nurses could be able to pick up their own patients from us. They are too understaffed to leave. This is how we do it.

we are staffed with all RN's and one LPN. Our LPN along with an OR transporter (nurse assistant) transport all our pts to the floor unless they are going to ICU(then the pts Rn and transporter take the pt). There is no way the floor RN's would come get their pts. even if they had the time, which they don't.

Hi Guys, just want to say a big thankyou to everyone that has replied to this thread. It has definatly given me food for thought and highlighted the fact that we have a rather dated system and a need for change. Can I ask one of our U.S. friends what the role of a LPN involves. I have seen this abbreviation on many threads and often wondered what it is. Thanx.

:balloons:

Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get!

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