pacu72

This too happened where I worked. There was lots of turn over, but I and my patients are safer for it.

Work in a 24 bay PACU. Phase II closes at 2100, so any cases going home or waiting to be started come into the PACU at 2030. Fresh OR cases are recovered and sent to their rooms or to ICU. All while answering the questions of the family members of when their surgery will start and discharging the other patients home. We do have a good anesthesia team though. They extubate the patients and keep them comfortable before passing them over.

Our unit has been getting prepared for Joint Commission the entire month of May the new rules are: 1)Give pain meds in order as marked #1, #2, etc. 2)Anesthesia Dr. can't sign the orders until pt is in the PACU-which means we are calling him to the bedside, our unit can't afford a secretary. 3)Pediatric pts now have 10 order sets to choose from based on their weight. So, leave the bedside, pull the orders, and call the Dr. ,but you must find a free nurse to watch your pt then have her verify your pt's name and weight and she must sign the paper to make it legal. 4) 5/27/11-All medication orders must be verified by a pharmacist; RN has to leave bedside once again to retrieve order sheet, call Dr. for pain med that he has calculated. The RN must leave bedside a third time to fax the orders to the pharmacist to verify the medicine will not harm the patient- RN has allergy info as bedside. All this is in order to keep with Joint Commissions goal of quality of care and safe care.

Oh yes. Joint commision has come and has stated that we are not allowed to "mix" medications such as antibiotics that my need a vented hood (Ancef). The new stuff coming is that I'm not allowed to calculate medications, therefore, for my pediatric pts the anesthesiologist has to have signed, calculated, awakend the pt before he gets to me. Now the anesthesiologist can not sign the medication orders until the surgery is complete. Which most are aware will take the doc a few minutes to get to the bedside, in between seeing the pt's pre-op, at the beginning of the case, during the case, and awakening, coming by the bed, and signing pt's out to ICU/floor/home, among seeing them in PACU. I'm a real professional, I can't give any med until it's been caculated by the doc.

I started in the PACU, wished i had more ICU experince for the hiring flexibility. I hope this helps.

Our OR's are required to call prior to coming to PACU. Plus we follow ASPAN standards. If there is not a bay available we will call them back as soon as one becomes clear. If there is not an RN available the CRNA can bring the pt out, but she remains the primary caregiver, monitoriing,medicating, and documenting care until someone is free, however long that may be. This has become more prominent with the rush to for the OR to reach turn over times to save money, while for our unit we are down 4 RN's.

Hi guys' I'm Kim....very new to the web. Live outside of Charlotte and have worked as a Pacu nurse alomost 15 years. Looking for someone who can handle aome of my "nursing stories" without grossing them out and feedback. (The little face are fun too!)