2 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 7
Ideas Work
That
N
obody's happy when the last case of the day runs late, least
of all staff who have to stay past their normal quitting time.
To avoid this angst and ensure adequate coverage until the
last patient has been discharged, each day we designate staff on a
rotating basis to remain in the facility to care for patients until the
day's last case is done, which on days we're running late is usually 30
to 60 minutes later than usual (although plastic surgery cases can
keep them in the facility for 2 additional hours). On the daily sched-
ule, we assign 1 pre-op nurse, 1 OR nurse, 1 PACU nurse and 1 surgi-
cal tech as "lates" to stay on until we discharge the last patient. We
also assign a back-up late OR nurse and surgical tech, just in case
Stagger Staff for Late-Running Cases
• LAST ONES OUT Staff won't mind staying past the end of their normal shift when you schedule them as a "late."
Gina
Hartman,
RN
