jnewcomb1026

Our facility is doing this now due to lack of beds/staffing with influx covid patients taking up the majority of ICU/IMCU beds. We staff the unit 24/7 with a call team that rotate weekly call. Since covid has ramped back up, we are not only holding our post surgical patients that need ICU beds, but accepting transfers from the ICU if another patient from ER or the floor needs that bed. We aren't taking covid holds, but anything else goes. Nights aren't as bad since we don't run a full schedule overnight, just emergent surgeries, but during the day, the pacu nurses are recovering a full surgery schedule plus add ons, and taking admissions and discharges to and from surgical and ICU. It's a lot for our little department, and we usually staff 5 rns for 60 some cases during the day..which is a stretch but doable if we don't have 2 of those nurses tied up with CCU patients and holds. We only have 12 bays so I question where they plan to put patients if the surgery schedule stays up. It's a constant battle. Now the call team is no longer "on call" but we are required to staff the units that are short staffed and be on call to the PACU for admissions and the regular surgeries that come through. Not to mention the schedule we work now has built in mandatory overtime with no end in sight. I hear traveller's are coming but our unit isn't getting any. Are other smaller places utilizing their PACU in this way? At times it feels like a dump.

I traveled as a PACU nurse for 2 years back in 2014. I worked at 4 different facilities over the course of that time and was never floated to other units mainly because the needs were in PACU, which is why they needed travelers in the first place. I did work at a Level 1 trauma center with several PACUs and would float between those, but my contract stated no more than 1 float per shift...or something to that effect. One assignment I only stayed 13 weeks because once I got there, they needed me in their outpatient pacu instead of inpatient. This was the only hospital I've seen that had their units separate, which was strange, but they had a separate outpatient PACU that ran like an ambulatory surgery center (endos, kids ENT stuff) and nothing that went to inpatient beds. They were totally separate units and I think I only ever floated to the inpatient PACU once that entire assignment. My best advice is to interview with the managers and get a good idea of the unit and what you will be doing once you get there. Then make sure your recruiter has what you discuss in your contact before you accept. You have to be your own boss...and not trust your recruiter to do that work for you on the front end. Best of luck! I haven't floated during covid, so this may not the be best answer but I would still get it in your contract that you will only float to xyz units no more than 1x per 12 hr shift. Then you have a leg to stand on when you get there and they try to get fancy.