Staffing levels on Telemetry Units

1. Just want to get a general feeling out there.. I work on a 78 bed Telemetry floor( split int two sides ) dealing with high acuity patients... until now the standard grid has been 1-5, with nurses being pushed to 6 fairly routunely and sometimes 7 patients each shift.. it is not uncommon to have 10 admits and 10 discharges during each shift on each side.. ( 20 admits /20 discharges per shift ).. it has been recently annouced that we will be going to a 1-6 ratio as the standard .. is this a standard in other hospitals ?

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2. 13 Comments

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3. 
   May 20, '11

   Where I work the standard is up to five pts if we have aids, but only four pts each if we don't have any nursing aids. This is for night shift.
4. 
   May 20, '11

   We do 1:6 on nights with aides and we have 2 monitor techs.
5. 
   May 20, '11

   1 :6 where I work...sometimes 5 and sometime 7
6. 
   May 20, '11

   1:6 day shift with an aide. And for nights its usually 1: 6-8.
7. 
   May 20, '11

   the hospital i am at is 1:4 on nights on tele (when I worked tele in fla it was 1:6-8 with no tech/secretary on nights). it depends on what state you work in.
8. 
   May 20, '11

   Is this a tele floor with drips as well? Our drips are only in ICU, otherwise our tele pts are a 1:3-4 ratio. We have no tele tech though.
9. 
   May 20, '11

   Hi,
   
   I didn't check what state you write from. I am in CA. After 27 years I can only manage 4 patients at a time. In a 12 hour shift that amounts to probably 6 or 7 patients being turned around, discharged. I think technology is far ahead of our human ability to keep up. The ratios need to be lower. Only if we want to do well by the patient.
   
   You are not alone.
10. 
    May 20, '11

    Ugh, that is just wrong.
    
    
    

    Quote from FancypantsRN

    the hospital i am at is 1:4 on nights on tele (when I worked tele in fla it was 1:6-8 with no tech/secretary on nights). it depends on what state you work in.
11. 
    May 20, '11

    I'm on a 25 bed tele unit, no monitor techs. We do take gtts but don't titrate (aside from heparin and argatroban). Days is 4:1 (5:1 sometimes) with three techs; nights is 5:1 (go up to 6:1 fairly often though) and we're supposed to have two techs, but lately it's been about 75% of the time we only have one. We also don't have phlebotomy or EKG tech, we do all that too.
12. 
    May 20, '11

    We are 1:4 days and nights. No tele techs, and 2 UCs/secretaries from 8a to 8p. We're only a 20 bed floor, and we generally staff for 16, with 2 care techs. If we open the last station for 20, we get one more tech.
13. 
    May 20, '11

    It just sopunds like too much. You are right to question.
14. 
    May 20, '11

    I work nights on a 'med/tele' unit... But it's pretty much all tele, maybe 1-2 medical patients on the whole floor. We have 1-7 ratio, with 2aides and 3 nurses. Secretary only until 11. No charge nurse. And get this... Our monitors/monitor tech are on another floor.

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