Hospital CNAs/PCTs: What's your workload like?

Nursing Students CNA/MA

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I work at a very small, very rural hospital. We barely qualify to be a level IV trauma center, we're that small. We have about 30 beds and have 3 regular, intermediate/swing bed patients on site besides your usual load of acute, swing bed-skilled and outpatient/obs patients. We probably average around 6 to 7 patients a week, including our intermediate patients.

I work first shift and there are usually three of us on the schedule as CNAs. Second shift has 2 and night shift has one. There are usually 3 nurses working until 11 p when it goes to just 2 with one extra on call.

As CNAs, we're assigned usually 2 to 3 patients if we have three CNAs scheduled, more if there are only two of us scheduled.

I'm curious to know what the case loads are like in other places. There are days that just 3 patients keep me hopping compared to the 7 to 10 residents I would be assigned to when working in LTC.

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I work at a hospital on the medsurg floor. We have 52 beds on that floor and it's the largest unit of the hospital. On a good day I have 10 patients and and a bad day I have about 15-20 patients. I started on this floor on the day shift and man the day shift is always so short staffed that sometimes there were two cnas with a full house and man it would get really stressful. However, I am now on the night shift and staffing is much better and I am much more relaxed. Glad I switched because I was going to go insane on day shift.

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Well I work at a Hospice House, and we used to have 21 beds open until the corporate dropped us to 14 beds because they wanted to keep the other Hospice facility out in the country open which only has 7 beds for acute care. We work 12 hr shifts, and I work first, so I have another aide with me and 2 nurses; that is typically on the weekend. On the regular workweek we still have the same number of nurses and aides, but also the managers are there as well as social workers, people that answer phones and set up the new admission kits/charts. Typically we never have a 3rd aide work during first shift, and when we have really low numbers at night usually its one aide and one nurse unless the nurse is an LPN then I guess the other nurse would stay as well. As for how many patients I typically have its usually 5-6, sometimes 7 when my side is full. I have had to take of both sides at full capacity one morning by myself simply because the other aide called out and therefore we were shorthanded. Typically, the nurses will help out as much as they can and when they can.

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

Med/Surg 15 pts q4 vitals, hourly rounding, q2 vitals on fresh post-ops, in addition to all the normal stuff.

ICU is more like 5 patients, maybe less

Acute Rehab is 8 patients to fully bathe, dress, pass meal trays to x3, toilet, put into bed for naps, etc. Hard, hard work. But a lot of fun!!

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You usually have 2 to 3 patients? Wow, thats awesome. I usually have anywhere from 8 to 15 patients and occasionally more than that. This is on a med/surg telemetry unit. I've floated to other units and the patient load is usually the same, although the number of RNs assigned to your patients can vary significantly depending on the type of unit and acuity of the patients. I dont think I've ever had just 2 or 3. When I worked at a small rural hospital with one inpatient unit it was usually 10 to 20 patients and we had everything from post surgical patients that needed q15 to q1 vitals to dying patients on comfort care and everything in between.

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We only have surgeries scheduled for Tuesdays as we don't have an official, dedicated surgeon on staff. They have specialists come in to do surgeries and consult and outpatient clinics so on Tuesdays, we have a fourth CNA who is totally dedicated just to those coming in for surgeries. Most of those are outpatient type surgeries; I think since I've worked there, we've had one patient have to stay over after a procedure. We've had one wing full for about three days and we were hopping to get everything done. We are technically classified as med-surg but spend most of our time with swing bed-skilled patients. One CNA is usually devoted solely to be the one who cares for the acute patients and does the vitals. The other two of us are considered the intermediate CNAs. It's more title than anything else because we work as a team and cover for someone if they're held up elsewhere and they need vitals.

There was one week when I first started that we had absolutely no acute or outpatient/obs patients; we only had our 2 intermediate patients and one swing bed-skilled. It was so boring! But the week after made up for it as we filled up with about 15 patients over the course of the week. They work us short on Sundays so the day it was me and a part-time CNA who still hasn't caught on to day shift routine and we had six patients apiece with two more admits right at lunch time, I was about to go crazy.

I love the fact that you are never really for sure on what you'll have when you come into work. We can (sort of) count on having our intermediate patients and our one permanent swing bed-skilled patient to care for but I like having the variety of people, even though some of our frequent flyers can be draining. We get called into the ER from time to time to help the nurses if they need an extra set of hands but for the most part, it's pretty easy going. We're lucky in that the majority of our nurses aren't unwilling to jump in, glove up, and help us when we need it.

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I work in a large hospital on a medicine floor. On a good shift I will have 10 patients. On a bad shift, I have the whole floor which is 30 patients. Usually I have half the floor which is 15. There is no way to adequately care for 15 pts. I often find myself rushing and cutting corners, which I despise! My floor has a lot of 1:1's, and the float pool is rarely sent to my unit. Staffing seems to be an ongoing issue. Luckily I have awesome nurses which help out a lot.

What I don't quite understand is how the hospital says they have no money for CNA's, yet they are constantly doing reconstruction on the hospital (which it doesn't "need.") I'd prefer to have staff rather than new elevators, floors, units, playgrounds, ponds, etc. The patient is suppose to be number one. I'm sure it's more important to take care of them correctly and efficiently, than to have a fancy lobby and marble walls. What good is all that if inside the rooms you have pts sitting in feces for hours because I am the only one on the floor?

Sorry for the rant :arghh:

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I work 7-3 when I'm on the floor, a good day is 9 patients. Vitals Q4, BS (ACHS or Q6), Meals, Baths and normal calls. When I'm in the ICUs 7A-7P I'll have 14 pts, and in the ER (30 beds) 7A-7P Splints, Labs, Ekgs, BS, codes and whoever gets to the patient first for needs haha.

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I work on a busy pediatric ortho/trauma (with med-surg thrown in) with 24 beds. Usually there are 2 of us - 1 takes A side, the other takes B side, which means 12 patients each. Most days we have several discharges and admissions (height/weight and VS) to work into our schedule. Q4 vitals, I&Os, FSBGs, linen changes, showers (although a lot of times the parents will do this), rounding, and the usual call bell stuff. Never a dull moment!

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How do you stay busy for 8 hours when you only have two patients? Vitals on 2 patients only takes 5 minutes?

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We find ways. Sometimes we sit with our intermediate patients, do activities and such. We have a bath schedule for our swing bed-intermediates so that takes up a large portion of the morning. We don't do vitals on those patients every day. We help in the ER if necessary. We make up empty beds, clean out rooms when patients are discharged, take out trash and laundry, pass ice and snacks, answer call lights, clean the break room, take equipment to central supply/sterilizing, do admits, hang up patients' laundry, and such. There is always something we can do. I go on search of things, even if it is straightening up a patient's room.

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I wish I had a patient load like yours! I am a CNA on the med/oncology floor and on a good night I have 10-12 patients. On a bad night it can be anywhere from 12-20. Day shift gets three techs at 24 patients, but on nights we only get two techs (if my part time coworker is on schedule, if not, i'm on my own) no matter how many patients we have. After my 12 hour shift of q4 vitals, daily wts, total care patients, constant call lights, q2 safety checks, behavior health patients, and absolutely NO help from the nurses whatsoever... I don't even want to think about the hospital anymore! I've floated to other floors (I have to go most of the time since i'm the only CNA) and the nurses pretty much treat us the same way .. the refuse to answer call lights, get blankets, water, etc because "that's a tech's job". It infuriates me, but that's what I deal with until I finish nursing school!

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