PACU 

The PACU at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital is a 16-bed open bay unit that is staffed by registered nurses and care partners. The unit provides recovery for patients who received general, sedation, local and blocked anesthesia. Post surgical patients are accepted from the main operating room and occasionally from the outpatient operating room if problems develop or the patient needs a higher level of care. The unit also recovers patients from Angio, CT, and Endoscopy that had procedures requiring general anesthesia. During high census times in the hospital, this unit also maintains fully recovered patients waiting for regular or step-down rooms until beds become available.

The nurse patient ratio is 1:2, unless there is an ICU patient in which case the ratio goes to 1:1. During high census time, any patients waiting for beds will also share their nurse with a third fresh post operative patient. All staffing and call staffing are based on the perianesthesia nursing standards.