Registered Nurse - Recovery/Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU)

Overview

• The Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) L2 KACOLD provides advanced and complex nursing care to adult and pediatric patients who are in the immediate post-operative surgical procedures.
• Critically ill, post-operative patients will be cared for in the PACU on an emergent and temporary basis only.
• No. of Beds: 13 beds
• Services include:
• Oxygen therapy including: humidified and non-humidified via nasal cannula, simple mask, non-re-breather mask, partial re-breather mask, venture-mask, trach-mask, bag-mask and t-piece
• Airway management including head-tilt chin-lift or jaw-thrust technique, oral and nasal airway insertion, use of bag-mask, suctioning, auscultation of breath sounds and ABG interpretation
• Administration of narcotics via IV, IM, IV PCA pump, epidural pump
• Administration of reversal agents and high-alert medications
• Patient assessment and evaluation in the immediate post-operative phase (all age groups)
• EKG monitoring and basic interpretation
• IV fluids and blood product administration
• Cardioversion and defibrillation
• Transcutaneous pacing
• Chest tube management and insertion assistance
• Invasive hemodynamic monitoring
• Patient controlled analgesia, epidural analgesia and regional anesthesia
• Infection control, hand hygiene, standard precautions, contact precautions, special organism precautions, droplet precautions, airborne precautions
• Safety management
• Tracheostomy care
• External ventricular drain monitoring
• Point of Care testing (blood sugar and hemoglobin)
• Pyxis (automated dispensed medications)
• Electronic documentation on iView and I&O, medication administration records (MAR), Power Orders and Perioperative document, (ICIS Phase 1 to Phase 4)
• Paper documentation and procedures for ICIS downtime
• Central venous catheter management
• Management of artificial airways
• Pain management
• Management of patients post Renal transplant and implementation of post-transplant protocols