What is the maximum number of patients per nurse?

Specialties Med-Surg

Published

  1. How many patients per nurse?

107 members have participated

Worst Case Scenario:

  1. What is the maximum number of patients per nurse on your Medical/Surgical floor?
  2. Which shift?
  3. Which state?
  4. How often do you find yourself in such a situation?

Background:

When our nurses explained to our DON that it was not only unrealistic, but also unsafe for one nurse to take care of 12+ patients with minimal help on the night shift, he said that we were much better off than many other hospitals. Is that true?

Specializes in Post Surg.

days 4-5

nights 5-6

cna's usually have 9 pts

oregon

i could not handle more than 6, i work nights.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, PCU.
Oh, our average is 4-5 pts.

You lucky duck! Where do you work? I'm applying ASAP! (LOL) Even if I have to go accross the country! Ha, ha!

:yeah:

Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, PCU.
days 4-5

nights 5-6

cna's usually have 9 pts

oregon

i could not handle more than 6, i work nights.

I'm in Florida now. I've worked facilities in other areas of the country. The half way decent acute care facilities, on a med/surg floor will average 5-6 pts. What I've observed in Fla.s that they are cutting down on the nursing assistants drastically. I work nights. I float to different facilities. On a 32-bed unit at any given night, there might be only 1 tech for all 32 beds. I love nursing assistants (when they're good & conscientious). We get hit hard, but so do they.

I think the only way to work through this crises, is for the nurses to come together and help each other out as well as work as a team with the nursing assistants. Our jobs are so much harder without them.

I have had nights with 7 to 8 patients. Horrific!

Something must get done to resolve these issues. The ultimate victims are the patients. I hope at some point, each pt. will have their own room and that a family member can stay. It is spiritually and emotionally conforting to them (which helps the healing process) and certainly helps us out (in most cases-unless the families are demanding rather than helpful) when short of techs.

God bless us all!:yeah:

Specializes in Cardiovascular, ER.

The facilities in south Florida I just worked at:

7 pts on nights PCU

8 pts on nights tele

and they titrated drips. That was bad..... central Florida was better with 4-5 on nights.

i'm working at a small community hospital in chicago, medsurg/tele floor... normal and not so bad days we'd get 5-6 patients a piece plus 1 admission and 1 discharge... crazy days like yesterday, we'd start off with 8!!!! to make it crazier we only had 1 tech for the 41 census floor... and crazy days happen too often makes me wanna quit!

Specializes in ER, progressive care.

12 patients, that's crazy!!! On our med-surg units, they take 6-7 patients, both days and nights. Dayshift charge does not take patients; night shift charge will but usually a reduced load (5-6 patients). If med-surg is full, they usually get 2-3 CNAs + monitor tech.

On my floor (PCU), the ratios are 1:4-5 depending on staffing. 4 patients on a great day, 5 on a bad...6 on a really bad day! Dayshift charge does not take patients; night shift charge takes patients which is usually a reduced load (4 patients if everyone else has 5) but it depends. There have been many times where I have been in charge but have taken extra assignments to help out my fellow RNs. We get 2-3 CNA's + monitor tech if we are full. We usually always have a monitor tech unless the census is low.

Specializes in LTC, med/surg, hospice.

I may have posted here but our usual is days 5-6 and nights 5-8. I think 6 is a comfortable if you don't have too many fires to put out.

Specializes in MedSurg.

I work in CA, 900 bed hospital. Our med surg tele units usually get 1:4 ratio but can go to 5 pts either nights or days. Hospitals can not go beyond 5 pts due to State law mandate. We get 3 cna's for 24 pts, 1 charge no assignment but helps out a lot. Ive been here for 12 year night shift and looking forward for more years. Even if we are not unionized, we owe CNA and the cali nurses for lobbying for the mandate and i hope it goes nationwide because it really saves a lot of pts, and a lot of nurses.

Another aspect of the ratios, especially on nights where there are A LOT less staff memebers around.( ON days pt /ot, dietary, housekeeping, respiratory, more aides and nurses, unit clerks, residents and attendings rounding etc) is that there are less people to help or answer bells or even less people looking at a pt . An assignment of 6 -7 patients on nights per nurse may be doable with 1 aide or no aides even. but that means there are only 3-5 people on the floor. So that means, one can't go to the cafeteria and expect a 2-4 nurses to manage the whole floor, or what about those pts that take 4 staff memebers to turn them or clean them up. There have been nights where trying to find ONE nurse on the whole floor to help with anything, waste meds, turn/clean pts, change pcas etc , takes 15 mins or so. One nurse is busy inserting an ng tube, another is giving meds, another is assisting a pt to bathroom. Oh and call bells are going off and bed alarms. If everything goes well it is doable. but that doesn't happen all the time. Give it 1-2 unstable pts on a med surg floor, insulin drips, ortho and gen surg post ops etc and it is run run run and pray pray pray nothing goes wrong. then pts complain it takes too long to get meds or answer bells. what do mangers expect when there are only 3-5 people present to answer a potential 30 bells.

Specializes in Pediatric Cardiology.

1:5 during the day/evening with free charge M-F.

1:6 during the night.

Depending on the census, 2-3 techs. They usually have 8 or so patients.

MA. We never would find ourselves in that situation, unfortunately someone would be mandated to stay.

Pennsylvania

5:1 sometimes 6:1/2

I have worked with 6:0 plenty of times though.

Days 5 patients per nurse. Sometimes the charge has a full assignment,sometimes she doesn't depending on if there is enough staff for it. There are also 3 CNA's for 30 patients, a monitor tech and a HUC.

On nights there are 6 patients per nurse, the charge has a full patient load and there are 2 CNA's for 30 patients with a monitor tech and HUC.

I'm on a pulmonary unit and it's extrememely busy. It's very common to be hanging 6 or 7 IVPBs a night for one patient.

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