STRETCHER SECRETS Place the patient's PACU papers under the stretcher so they won't get lost or taken.

Patient Paperwork Hitches a Ride on Stretcher

Our patients stay on the same stretcher the whole time they're here — and their PACU papers go along for the ride. When I pre-op a patient, I place the nursing record, medication reconciliation record, post-op orders and discharge instructions under the stretcher so that they don't get lost in the shuffle. Before I started doing this, sometimes our physicians would walk away with the patient's chart in PACU and the recovery nurse would be left scrambling to find them.

Anna Risdorfer, RN
Glen Echo Surgery Center
Chevy Chase, Md.
[email protected]