Tawnee

herring_RN, Thank you so much for your response. I appreciate the time and effort you put into it. I would not consider my unit a PACU but agree with you that it could be considered a step-down unit. I browsed the faq's and have come up with even more questions. I can see that I am going to have to put hours of research into this. I think I'll start by checking with ASPAN to see if my type of unit comes under their wing. I'll also have to see if I can find some literature that spells out exactly what constitutes conscious sedation. I want to get all my ducks in a row before I even think about approaching my manager. Thanks again for your help. Sherwood, Sorry for hijaking your thread. I'm happy that the Inland Valley nurses were able to become union free since CNA didn't work out for them. That's not an easy thing to accomplish. CNA is fairly new to our facility; I'm curious to see how much support I'll actually get from them on this daunting task I'm undertaking.

I work in an area where we recover patients post cardiac cath. We are using the femostop in two different ways. One, at a low pressure to serve the same function as a sandbag. The other, at a high pressure to achieve hemostasis. In the past, the cath lab nurses would hold pressure until hemostasis but are no longer taking the time to do that; so we are now getting more patients with femostops at high pressure. Our ratio is 4:1, but I think a patient that has not achieved hemostasis should require a higher level of care/observation. I'd like to know if other facilities change the acuity level of patients in this situation **If you have a patient with a femostop at high pressure to achieve hemostasis, is that patient considered 1:1, 2:1, 4:1? **Does anyone know of any online resources that would help me justify increasing the acuity level of this type of patient?

herring_RN, Thank you for that link. I work in an area where we recover patients after cardiac caths and angiograms/angioplasties/stents done in interventional radiology. Our ratio is 4:1 which I think is too high at times due to the acuity of the patients. Do you have any suggestions on where I could find more specific information on the difference between stepdown, telemetry, and specialty units? I'm not sure where my department falls according to those guidelines, but our staffing should be at least the same as telemetry. I want some pretty strong literature to back me up when I ask for better staffing.