Staffing Ratios in Nursing Homes (for Arizona)?

U.S.A. Arizona

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Hello Everyone,

Does anyone know the legal staffing ratios in nursing homes for Arizona? or Where can I find out what is the legal the nurse to patient ratios for each state? I am a nursing student, and have to do a research about safe staffing ratios. Thank you so much in advance for your help!!

KN

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

You can google "nurse ratios in nursing homes in Arizona".

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As far as I know, there aren't any legal staffing ratios for nurses in LTC, anywhere. I could be wrong.

All I've ever heard is that all skilled nursing facilities must have a RN on the floor 8 hours out of every 24. The rest of the day can be, and often is, only staffed by LPNs.

This is what I found with a Google search:

To date, the federal Nursing Home Reform Act (NHRA), as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1987, requires minimum staffing levels for registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and a minimum educational training for nurse's aides (NAs). The NHRA requires Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes to have: an RN director of nursing (DON); an RN on duty at least 8 hours a day, 7 days a week; a licensed nurse (RN or LPN) on duty the rest of the time; and a minimum of 75 hours of training for nurse's aides. The law allows the DONs to also serve in the capacity as the RN on duty in facilities with less than 60 residents. In addition, the law re quires nursing homes "to provide sufficient staff and services to attain or maintain the highest possible level of physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being of each resident" (Harrington, 2001; OBRA, 1987). Total licensed nursing requirements converted to hours per resident day (HPRD) in a facility with 100 residents are around 0.30 HPRD (Harrington & Mill man, 2001), or 30 hours per day.

Despite setting a precedent, this requirement does not provide specific nurse-to-resident staffing ratios for RNs, LPNs, or NAs, and does not require any minimum level of staffing at all for NAs. Other than the instructions to provide "sufficient" staff, the fact that a facility of 50 residents has basically the same staffing requirements as a facility of 200 indicates the lack of specificity and adequacy of these federal requirements.

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Specializes in LTC, Psych, M/S.

http://dpeaflcio.org/wp-content/uploads/Safe-Staffing-Ratios-2013.pdf

This is an excellent and current report on nurse staffing issues

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Interesting read.

Only a few states listed any sort of ratios. And it should be kept in mind none of those ratios were for patient assignments. They were simply ratios for licensed nurses (LN) in building to resident.

For example, I saw a couple states that listed a ratio of 1:15 for day shift. Sounds good on paper, but this does not mean that each floor nurse gets an assignment of 15 pts max. The LN is the ratio includes all the nurses in the building. Throw in the DON and MDS nurse, and each floor nurse could, easy, still have upwards of forty patients each.

Can I really say there are no mandated staffing levels for LTC at the federal or state level? No, no I can't. But when you take into account all the loopholes, most of all of that is completely irrelevant on a practical level.

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Thank you so much for your time. These are very good information. Really appreciate!

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Thanks!

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