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frequency of pain medication, how to administer and with what types of foods."
SPECIAL DELIVERY It helps to transport patients to their rides in the parking lot.
"Patients and relatives like it, but we only allow it when the PACU is pretty empty late in the day," says anesthesiologist Robert Bullock, MD, medical director of the Grossmont Plaza Surgery Center in La
Mesa, Calif.
"Parents of pediatric patients come back early in the recovery process and this helps speed up the discharge. Other family members of adults are not invited back to PACU until the patient is almost ready to be discharged," says Lorraine Gambol, manager of the Surgery Center of Chester County in Exton, Pa.
To keep the PACU flowing, Beaver Sports Medicine Surgery Center makes sure the patient is awake and dressed before family is allowed in. "Seeing their family member dressed and awake helps the family member see the patient as ready to go home," says Ms. Vahle. "If they were in a hospital gown, some family members see the patient as sick and feel their recovery should be longer." OSM
E-mail doconnor@outpatientsurgery.net.
