Army nurse corp patient ratio

[spawnupe]

Just wanted to get a few perspectives on the nurse/patient ratios for the AMC?( floor nursing). I was told 3-4 patients. I was also told 6. Some insite would be greatly appreciated.

[forwaters]

I can't answer your question directly, as I don't even leave for OBLC until January, but I think it's important to point out that # of patients in the military doesn't necessarily equate to the same thing as # of patients in a civilian acute care setting. In the civilian world you might have an assignment of 6 or 7 patients and your entire floor might only have 1 or 2 CNA's to help out. In the military, even if you did have an assignment of 6-7 patients, you need to remember that the med techs working with you are heads and tails above any CNA (their skill set is closer to that of an LPN) and there are a lot more of them on the floor than 1 or 2.

Hope that helped :)

[athena55, BSN, RN]

Hey there, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents:twocents:

I haven't worked the floors at my MEDCEN, just the unit (ICU) and the usual ratio is 2:1. Now if there are patients who could be transfered out of the unit to the floor, but there aren't any beds then a GS nurse will take them which will cause the ratio to be 3:1.

Where I am there aren't any med techs...So it is just us RNs/LPNs working (both military and civilian) in the ICU. Up on the floors the usual ratio is indeed 5-6:1, from what I have been told. When I worked for the VA (Telemetry/Step-down) the usual ratio was 8:1 but if there were only two of us working then it was 12:1. YIKES!!

Hey forwaters, have fun at OBLC!

athena