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S P E E D Y
R E C O V E R Y
Average length of PACU stay
"We like to
remind
patients how
much more
comfortable
they'll be at
home in their
own bed."
With the exception of cataract cases or local anesthesia cases, we asked survey respondents to tell us their average length of PACU stay. For most (58.1%), it's somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour. For one-fourth of respondents (25.8%), patients are discharged in 1 to 2 hours, and for 1.6%, it's more than 2 hours. The Albany (Ga.) Surgery Center is among the 14.5% of facilities that can boast a mean PACU stay of 30 minutes or less.
"We do only IV sedation with nerve blocks, so our recovery and turnover are rapid," says OR Supervisor Sherry Butts, RN, BSN. "PACU is only 30 minutes unless the patient has post-op nausea, has breakthrough pain requiring another nerve block or needs a dressing change due to bleeding."
Albany specializes in podiatric surgery. All patients get a post-op nerve block for pain control. "It's great for the patients to get home with little to no pain initially post-op," says Ms. Butts.
The Pontchartrain Surgery Center in Covington, La., offers peripheral nerve blocks to its orthopedic and podiatric patients for post-op
pain control. "Patients recover virtually pain- and nausea-free when anesthesia administers these blocks timely in recovery or during preop," says Dana Galivan, BSN, the director of nursing. Ms. Galivan adds
