IN AND OUT Your PACU will run smoother if you have patients' snacks ready and waiting for them when they come out of the OR.

COFFEE, JUICE OR TEA?
Take Post-Op Snack Orders in Pre-Op

Most surgical facilities offer patients a snack and a drink after surgery. We do things just a little differently here at our eye surgery center, not in the refreshments we offer patients, but in how we serve them. Rather than wait until the patient is out of the OR to ask what she'd like to eat (varieties of cookies and crackers) and drink (juices, water, coffee, tea), our pre-op nurse takes the patient's order while she's admitting her. This way, we'll have her graham crackers and apple juice ready as soon as she walks out of the OR. This is a great way to avoid bottlenecks in recovery, as patients spend a few minutes less in post-op. We came up with this idea because our physicians would talk to their patients right out of surgery. This delayed our nurses from asking about refreshments. Now we line up snacks in our post-op area while the patient is in the OR.

Rebecca Easterday, RN
Mahoning Valley Ambulatory Surgery Center
Tamaqua, Pa.
[email protected]