Journal of perianesthesia nursing : official journal of the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses
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J. Perianesth. Nurs. · Apr 2002
Statistical power analysis to estimate how many months of data are required to identify PACU staffing to minimize delays in admission from ORs.
When each nurse in the Phase I setting is caring for the maximum number of patients allowed by hospital staffing standards (typically 2 per ASPAN standards), patients may have to be held in the OR until a PACU nurse becomes available. Previously, the authors described a statistical method to determine the process of scheduling existing nurses without increasing staffing hours (Dexter et al. Anesth Analg. 92:947-949, 2001). ⋯ There was a marked improvement in the performance of the staffing solutions at preventing "PACU hold" by increasing from 20 to 80 historical workdays of data, a slight but statistically significant improvement between 80 and 100 workdays, but no significant improvement in further increasing the number of workdays of data. PACU nurse managers should use at least 4 months of data when choosing a staffing solution to minimize the chance of patients waiting in ORs for PACU admission. Tampering with PACU staffing more often than every 4 months is unlikely to result in improvements in OR efficiency and may harm recruitment and retention of nursing staff.