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It can vary from hospital to hospital but in my ED day shift ratios are 1-3 if you have a trauma room and 1-5 for the rest of the ED including fast track in after 11p it goes to 1-5, then 1-7 after 3a. Hopefully things slow down after 3a so not all the beds are full, but we often have patients we are holding either because there are not enough beds in the hospital or they will increase the nurse-patient ratios in the ED so that the floors will not have to increase their ratios if they are short a nurse. Then if we have a nurse call out and can't cover the shift our ratios will increase for hte duration of the uncovered shift.
I'm in southwestern PA, on a post-surgical/telemetry unit and our daylight and evening ratio is 5:1 (not counting admissions and discharges). I work nights only and our ratio is 7:1. It's very unsafe. Our unit manager has changed the ratio's twice in the past 7-8 months and "claims" that she cannot change them back due to the budget. Yet most of the full-time nurses get about 10 hours of overtime a week because we just run like crazy during our shifts and don't even get to sit down to chart until the 8 hour shift is over and we've given report to the next shift.
I'm in Virginia and I work in ICU where the ratio is 2:1 (or 3:1 when we're short-staffed)unless the patient is really critical, then it becomes 1:1. When I worked med-surg, the ratio at the hospitals where I worked were 6-7:1 on days and evenings, and 7-9:1 (sometimes 10) on night shift. The stepdown units are 4:1 at all times unless of course they are short-staffed and unable to cover the hole.
HeartsOpenWide, RN
1 Article; 2,889 Posts
I am in California where there are slim to none in nursing jobs for new grads. I am highly considering leaving the state but am scared to venture out of California's nice nursing rations. What is the nursing ratio in your state??