Med/ surg nurse to patient ratio

[aloha16]

What is the normal med surg ratio? I just started to this new facility that cancelled nurses all the time stating that low census, but let the nurses on the floor with 7 patients. I feel like 7 patient is too much and how can you expect to give quality care for patient when you have that much patient.

[K9lover, ASN, RN]

California has legal guidelines of 5 for M/S and 4 telemetry which is plenty given they are rolled out of the ICU door the nanosecond they are extubated...

[CiaMia, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, APRN, NP]

Community hospital- on med/surg tele floor: 1-4/1-5 on days, 1-5/1-6 on nights.

[gettingbsn2msn, MSN, RN]

Back when I was a traveler 4 years ago it was 5-6 on days and 7 on nights (this was all hospitals). It was manageable for the most part. I would not have felt safe having more than that. My son just graduated with his BSN and he's telling me it's now 8 on nights. No way I would do this. If I were a young nurse and had 2 years of experience I would head to California. There are laws that protect against this. Plus the pay is far better. Now some will say it's too expensive to live but I would figure something out. Possibly go as a traveler and live in a RV if I had to.

[NuGuyNurse2b]

^ 8 on nights is common for my hospital. Hell, there are days where I have 8! On the one hand they stress those survey scores, and then go cheap with the staffing. The two are directly related.

[chris21sn, BSN, RN]

I work nights, and the max we can get is 8 patients. Most nights I have 6-7 patients. I work on a busy telemetry floor.

[Caffeine_IV]

1:6 on nights.

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

Reading posts and responses like this reminds my why I'm thankful I'm in peds and one of the reasons I would never do adults. I don't know how you guys do it! We get 3 or 4 patients on average in pediatric acute care world, the most I've had in my 12 years is 5.

[3ringnursing, BSN]

I agreed to float to a tele/cardio unit one night from ICU because I couldn't afford to take a low census night off (our unit had a no float agreement) ... I was given 12 patients. Granted they were all walkie-talkies, but damn ... I barely got the basics finished. I left with huge respect for the nurses on that unit the next morning.

[ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP]

It may not be abnormal or unexpected but it is inappropriate and unsafe.

I went PRN for that reason. Seven patients...ridiculous.

I've worked in various units, in a lot of different hospitals as permanent staff and a traveler, and patient ratios can vary a lot. It also depends what shift you're working.

I like working nights, and on med/surg floors I've seen anywhere from 3 to 13 patients. But for the most part, an average assignment would be 6 to 8 patients.

You mentioned that the nurses had 7 patients, and that it felt like too many. IMHO and experience, an assignment with 7 patients on med/surg is not abnormal or unexpected.

Good luck! :)

[freckles23]

Sadly I run into the same scenario. We will have 4 nurses on the floor and max of 9 patients each most nights. If we have 4 nurses and census is like 25 they will slam us with admissions til we reach our max of 35 patients on the floor. The other night we had 3 nurses on the floor because a few called out and supervisor said its okay for us to have 3 nurses they just wont give is any admissions during the night. My co worker that night had 9 patients plus an admission. This is on a med-surg tele unit on nights at a hospital. Talk about overwhelming and stressful. No wonder why nurses are calling out, because they work us like dogs and dont expect us to get sick or for us to even want to show up to work.

[freckles23]

Mind you dependig on your patients as well, you can have 9 good patients or 9 who are all complete care. If something goes wrong with one, you can guarantee I wont see my other 8 patients til later on. And yes they stress good patient satisfaction score but its nearly impossible for our ratio. I will never understand it