Recoveries at night

[Gi rn acm, BSN]

I work in an endoscopy unit where we have very little activity at night. In the case that we're called in for foreign body cases in the middle of the night the egd is done most cases as an outpatient. We go in remove the foreign body ( mainly just food) and patient goes to pacu because they were intubated. My question is as a pacu nurse would you discharge this patient home, and do the phase 2 work or would you have a phase 2 nurse stay and hand the patient to them when your done. Currently where  l work we have one of the nurses who were in the procedure stay and recover the phase 2 part and pacu RN leaves and goes home. We do have a second RN if needed but that would be the or charge nurse. Just curious. As an endoscopy nurse I rarely ever do recoveries except for this instance. I was trained for recoveries for maybe 2 days. 

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

The standard of practice for recovering a patient before discharge is the same no matter what time it is or who’s on the schedule, LOL. Your facility cannot cut corners in any way on this without increasing risk of liability. 

So your answer (for procedure and staffing levels) lies in the facility P&P for criteria for home discharge after intubation and anesthesia. If it says two RNs in the room for recovery, then that’s it. If it specifies VS, ambulatory status, the person to whom they are discharged, pt teaching, discharge meds, all of that stuff, that’s what has to be provided off-hours. 
 

Hope that helps. Am I missing something? 

[RainMom]

Where I am, the PACU nurse continues care of an outpatient thru phase II as well & does the discharge for after hours. Our phase II nurses do not take call.

[Gi rn acm, BSN]

Thanks for your input RainMom. Where I work it is one of the procedural RNs that have to stay and do the phase 2 part of recovery. Just curious to see what others do. 

 

[GirlOnPfizer, BSN, RN]

At my facility (large trauma hospital)… the PACU nurses (2 on-call overnight) stay to recover the patient and send them home or to their inpatient room for the hospital to discharge afterward. The GI procedure nurse is in the procedure only (with the OR RN who hands off to us in PACU). We don’t even meet them, I think they are only there to assist the GI doc with the equipment?