Medication errors and interactions happen every day in the perioperative setting. It is the responsibility of the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) nurse to manage pain, nausea, vomiting, and maintain hemodynamics after surgery and prior to discharge. This project aimed to educate and/or re-educate PACU nurses on commonly used anesthesia medications in a rural hospital in southern Indiana. This project was requested by the nurses and the director of perioperative services as their 2023 Anesthesia Competency and had three weeks to complete this training. A pre-test was distributed prior to the educational PowerPoint on commonly used medications by anesthesia providers. After reviewing the PowerPoint, a post-test was distributed for assessment. The tests were distributed to the nurse’s work email by Qualtrics.com to track individual responses. The average score on the pre-test was 69.2%, the average post-test score was 83.3%, and the commonly missed question was on the medication dexmedetomidine. This project showed the importance of providing educational material on commonly used anesthetic medications for PACU nurses.

Creator

• Bartel, Hilda

Language

• English

Keyword

• PACU

• post anesthesia care unit

• medication errors

• recovery

• education

Date created

• 2023

Resource type

• Research Paper

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/