Parent participation in the postanesthesia care unit: fourteen years of progress at one hospital.

ABSTRACT

Parent participation in postanesthesia nursing practice was instituted in 1983 at Boston's Children's Hospital as part of a continuing emphasis on family participation in the care of hospitalized children throughout the hospital. This report describes the evolution and implementation of this practice. The success of this program is supported by data from quality improvement monitors of the comfort levels of PACU patients before and after their parents were invited to the bedside. Quality improvement monitors of parent satisfaction with involvement in their child's care were also conducted. Nursing exemplars illustrate parental and nursing responses to this program.