A post-anesthesia care unit, often abbreviated PACU and sometimes referred to as post-anesthesia recovery or PAR, is a vital part of hospitals, ambulatory care centers, and other medical facilities. It is an area, normally attached to operating theater suites, designed to provide care for patients recovering from anesthesia, whether it be general anesthesia, regional anesthesia, or local anesthesia.
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The PACU staff, generally composed of highly trained nurses are charged with many vital tasks for the care of post-anesthesia and post-operative patients. These essential activities include:-
These common activities may often need supplementing with more intensive care or treatment. This may require :
Occasionally, serious life threatening complications, such as laryngospasm, respiratory arrest, or malignant hyperthermia can arise post-anesthesia. Patients are cared for with interdisciplinary measures from Anesthesiologists, Certified Nurse Anesthetists or CRNA's, PACU nurses and Surgeons. Patients may remain or have to be re-intubated due to anaphylaxis, pulmonary edema, pneumothorax, or complications from surgery such as extended operative time and long-term exposure to anesthesia and narcotics. Unless complications occur, most patients will only stay in the PACU for a few hours, before returning home or to another department of the hospital.