I work on a Cardiac Tele floor in California, and while it is technically also a Med Surg floor, we are a progressive-care/step-down floor for the ICU. Our patients are much more sick/unstable than our other med-surg floors, and thus we have smaller ratios (that are union-protected, mind you) of 1:4. I like to describe our floor as ICU minus ventilators and titrated drips (we still have some vasoactive and antiarrhythmic drips). Most night on our floor, 3 patients feels insane.
We often have the unstable ACS patients come to us before cath lab, 3rd degree heart blocks before they get their device, CHF and COPD exacerbation patients, and of course heart surgery patients, post-op.
Most tele units are med-surg, but depending on the facility, may be more acute.
Dec 16, '12 by LuxCalidaRNI work on a Cardiac Tele floor in California, and while it is technically also a Med Surg floor, we are a progressive-care/step-down floor for the ICU. Our patients are much more sick/unstable than our other med-surg floors, and thus we have smaller ratios (that are union-protected, mind you) of 1:4. I like to describe our floor as ICU minus ventilators and titrated drips (we still have some vasoactive and antiarrhythmic drips). Most night on our floor, 3 patients feels insane.