In many hospitals, the postanesthesia care unit (PACU) functions 24 hours per day. Nurses “on-call” often cover nights, weekends, and holidays. It has been a struggle for some facilities to meet the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses (ASPAN) standard of care that recommends 2 nurses be present whenever an anesthetized patient recovers in Phase I PACU. Recent practice issues of “holding” patients for inpatient beds, not transferring ICU patients, and admission of patients from the ER to the PACU has complicated staff coverage for the overnight hours in PACU. ASPAN has crafted position statements in response to these issues to guide nurses. This author chronicles one hospital’s use of a night nurse to provide staffing stability and care for PACU patients after hours.
Address correspondence to Kathy Carlson, MA, RN, CPAN, 6005 Morgan Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55419
Editor’s note: “Soundwaves” was once a regular column, in the olden days when this journal was titled the Journal of Postanesthesia Nursing. The space was reserved for relevant, if more opinion-based, topics of reader interest. For old times sake, “Soundwaves” has been resurrected for this issue. The author of this article was Managing Editor of Journal of Postanesthesia Nursing from 1988-1993.
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