Med Surg Staffing Ratios

[diane227, LPN, RN]

Can you please give me an idea of what your staffing ratios are in your hospital on the med surg units (please name the hospital). I would like to know what the staffing ratios are for each shift. Please also tell me how many nursing assistants you have on each shift. Thanks Diane

[babyNP., APRN]

One year ago I was a tech at Harborview on the trauma surg unit. The RNs usually had 3 patients on days, 4 on evenings, and 5-7 on nights, as I recall. We also had two techs on each shift (consistent throughout the hospital) and the unit census was ~25-30, I think.

[Perpetual Student]

One year ago I was a tech at Harborview on the trauma surg unit. The RNs usually had 3 patients on days, 4 on evenings, and 5-7 on nights, as I recall. We also had two techs on each shift (consistent throughout the hospital) and the unit census was ~25-30, I think.

I was a student on that unit during the evening shift recently and things were similar, though most RNs had 3 pts, not 4.

I am eager to see the results of this thread.

[Bumashes, MSN, APRN, NP]

I live in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and work at Ocean Springs Hospital. We do 12 hour shifts, 7a-7p and 7p-7a. On both shifts, the ratio is supposed to be 1 nurse to 4 pts. We have 29 beds on my unit. However, this ratio goes out the window whenever it dang well pleases at times. They do try to stick with this, but what often happens is:

7 nurses will be scheduled for the day, but you will start with 20 pts and only 5 nurses ( because 2 nurses will have been called off for the day, with 1 of those remaining "on call" ). Now, all of the sudden we have a huge influx of admits, say 8 admits. They'll call in the 1 nurse on call, but that still didn't solve the problem now did it? That will leave some with 4 pts and some with 5. Sure, they could float nurses from other floors, but it seems that each floor operates under this same staffing mode so that no floor will have a spare nurse. This example happens about 1/2 of the time I work. And at times, depending on if people have called in sick or whatever, the ratio will get bumped up to 5 and 6 pts per nurse. Mostly, though, it only goes up to 5 half the time, and the rest of the time we get our coveted 4:1 ratio, which isn't all that great anymore considering how acutely ill these pts are nowadays!

As for our CNA's, we have 2 per shift.

[patwil73]

At Valley Medical in Renton the staffing is 4 or 5 on days, 5 or 6 on eve, and 6 or 7 on nights. They have 1 pca for up to the first 15 pts, and after that they get another pca every 12 (so 1-15 = 1 pca, 16-24 = 2 pca, 25-36 = 3 pca) they get extra pca's for suicide watch.

Hope this helps

Pat