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I'm looking to go into ED nursing and I was wondering what is the typical nurse to patient ratio on a relatively busy day. The program I interviewed for mentioned 7-8 patients and I thought it was a lot, especially in ED. Is that a lot? Or am I being unrealistic?
I am overseas and I normally have 4 pts in the main adult area. Resus is 1:1, consult(like fast track) is 6:1, kids ed 5:1, short stay (obs area) 5: 1 and up to 10:1 at night. (pts mainly sleeping being observed, ivf etc). We also have a waiting room nurse most of the 24 hrs who starts working up pts, they have the entire waiting room! Traige can have up to 6 pts being held in the ambulance area a /w beds, 1-3 triage nurses depending shift.
We are the equivalent of a large busy level 1.
Three to one 'regular' pts is our norm. Quite often we have a fourth mental health pt that doesn't require much of us once initial eval is done. We often get a fourth if an ambulance comes in when we are full, but once of our main 3 rooms is open that ambulance pt usually goes into that room getting us back to three.
DC :-)
Agreed, though in our case, our 3:1 (sometimes 4:1) as I just described is baseline. Someplace to start. We get a STEMI or CVA or respiratory distress or something and others jump in to help until things are manageable and then its still 1:1 for as long as needed, with others covering my other pts and rooms not getting filled until I am available.
DC :-)
GleeGum, BSN, RN
184 Posts
10:1 and no lab tech, sometimes a tech for ekgs/property lists. And we do our own respiratory treatments. And make some antibiotics. Crazy.