What has been your lowest census?

Nurses General Nursing

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I work for the second smalles hospital in Massachusetts. Total Potential bed population: around 32 patients.

Lately, I've been taking care of 50% of the hospital population . . . two people. (Total patient census for those nights was 4!. . . for the whole hospital!!)

(About a year ago, during this time of year, there was a total patient population of ONE !. . . . for the whole hospital! :eek: )

I guess this is the slow time of year. So I'm told.

I can't say that I'm happy about this. No patients, no money . . . no hospital?!?!? (. . . No job???)

Our small rural hospital does service a large geographical area which includes South-west Massachusetts, north-west Conneticut, and mid-eastern New York state. I'm told that this is to our advantage . . . a major reason why our hospital has existed for so long. Hopefully, this is true. I do like where I work!

When our ICU/CCU unit has been closed (because of no patients), I've been floating to either the med/surg floor or the ER. I actually like doing this. It beats eating up vacation time for being "on call". (We have a choice of being either placed on call or working on another unit.) It also helps keep work interesting.

Just wondering. . . . for those of you who work in small rural hospitals:

What's your lowest census? What do you do when your unit closes because of no patients? Do you have a choice to float to another unit or take call? What's your hospital's strategy to keep open during the "slow season"?

Regards,

Ted

P. S. During our "busy season" (from mid-fall to late spring) our unit usually has between 3 to 5 patients. Often, the med-surg unit is filled to capacity (about 16 patients). The maternity floor has no set busy or quite season - - it's just whenever the mothers/babies are ready . . .

Ted

I work in rural area. Pediatric Unit ( my unit) lowest census has been 1. Total in the hospital 65 and that includes the rehab and transistional care unit housed in the building. I am amazed that we continue to have a separate Peds unit especially since we are close to Childrens hospitals in Dallas, OKC and Tulsa.

In a 24 bed unit, 3 was the lowest. Beauty of it is they can't force us to take time off. They cancel agency and anyone on OT but regularly scheduled people are not forced to not come in. Of course they'll float you in a heart beat. One time I'd love to see all the staff who are not required to float be on a shift together and have a census of 4! They don't have to float or take off so they'd be paid for sitting on their butts all day! Would sure make up for all those shifts our butts never saw a chair!!! Plenty of those!!

we've had zero pt's a number of times in ob. 13 pp/gyn beds and 6 ldrp's. lowest # forour approx. 100 bed hospital 7 pt's!

I dunno, I'd rather stay home than float.

Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.

We had two on our unit sometime around Christmas. Very bizarre feeling. But as others said, it never lasts long lol.

I work in a small Picu and we are closed all the time. We have been closed about 50% of the time recently. Tonight we are open but have 2 RN's with 2 patients. When we are closed I have to be in house so i task in children's service. Since I am the only full time night staff in our unit I still make my 60 hours a week so i stay happy.

One hospital I worked at I ws the night shift Pedi unit staff...me myself and I. I worked 7p to 7a and I discharged the last pt about 8 pm. I had the choice of sticking around there and seeing if any kids would be admitted or going home and being on call. I chose to stay there and just found an empty room and went to sleep. I told the house supervisor that i would not float and take any adult pt's and then if I got a kid have to hand off those patients to some other nurse...he agreed with me. I told him to wake me if any kids came in. I slept till about 5:30 am and said to hell with it and went home then. Got paid to sleep basically the whole shift

Dave

I work @ a 94 bed facility MDs and adm. having problems so as a result pt load down, once oly pts we had were in er. LPNs got call and RNShad to be there just in case. We all take call if there are no pts. couple mos ago I got to work only 2 days out of 2 wks

Went for 1 week last year with 0 on the OB unit.

As a ICU nurse, in my rural hospital (42 bed & 4 ICU) it is not unusal for ICU to not have a pt. But we still stay on and watch tele's. Currently I have no pts, & one tele to watch..Not always this way sometimes we are the only RN caring for 2 pts. So you never know day to day...:rolleyes:

On our 32 bed M/S unit, I have seen as low as three. They will keep 2 nurses though, and send home the CNA's. We got administration convinced that there needs to be two nurses on the floor for safety's sake. Our census has been pretty low this summer. The administrator is getting nervous.

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

four on easter sunday 1993.

capacity 30. hsp size 600+beds.

this was during the hillary debacle of changing health care funding, and folks were just waiting to book elective surgery.

it was also at a time the administration decided to close one of our units (total of 65 beds) so they were leaning towards closing us.

what saved us was we had more certified rns (9) than they did (3). the other unit was closed and the doors actually padlocked with a chain! so it paid to be certified!

it was also the year i had shelled out $4000 for a trip to europe and had like no income because of the short census cancelling.

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