Recently our hospital is having many ICU patients stay in PACU overnight due to no ICU beds being available. We are following ICU orders in the PACU. This situation is causing staff and revenue integrity to question, how do you assign a ready for discharge from PACU Phase I time if they do not meet medical discharge criteria from PACU due to being intubated and on vasopressors? Do ICU patients not meet criteria until they leave PACU, or when they have aldrete of 8 or higher? Or when ICU team begins managing patient?
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