Assisted Living, Nurse to Patient Ratio?

[Katie423]

I just had an interview with an Assisted Living Facility . I was really excited until I learned that I would be the only nurse for the whole building on night shift. Thats 1:120 with treatments, med pass, colostomies, gtubes, and accu checks, not to mention if something happened! They don't have STNAs either, rather "care givers" and they told me I have to step in to help out in that area too......which I normally don't mind, I did at the LTC facility I worked at, but I only had 30-40 patients.

[lpnfb]

I work in an ALF now second shift. One LPN to 100 residents but no colostomies, g-tubes, or treatments. I do med pass for 35 people, BS checks and insulin for 6 residents, answer phones, call drs. take phone orders, call and fax pharmacy ect. There is many interuptions which makes it hard. A lot of residents are independent but I am still responsible for them if there is an emergency. It is a lot of responsipility and makes me very nervous. I don't understand how on top of all of that you can have residents with colostomies and g-tubes. They should not be in ALF. We can only do so much.

[*SJ*]

I work night shift in an ALF. We have an "enhanced" AL unit that is essentially LTC. There are 20 residents there I am responsible for. My facility has two other floors that I cover for emergencies but otherwise I mainly take care of the 20. I have 3-4 NAs for the entire facility at night and it usually goes well. I only have one g-tube to do at night and NO meds, the NAs do those. I do wound care, med set-ups, process orders, and help out the NAs when needed.

It sounds like you would have a lot of work for this job. Can you talk with a nurse who works nights there now and see what an actual night shift is really like? I can't imagine you would be doing accuchecks all that often or too many meds.

[vslpn04]

I work at an ALF. I am 1 of 3 nurse managers, we have 60 beds, no skilled cared residents. We have 4 cna staff on 1st and 2nd shift and 2 cna staff at NoC's, they do all the cares and med passes. Our role is supervision, training and managing the nurse office , ( DR. orders, charting assessment, managing pharmacy meds. scheduling , being there for staff ,fielding phone calls, disaplining staff, etc..) We do not do complex treatments, tube feeders, no cath care, or any thing that requires skilled nursing. we would have to have a home health nurse come in for that. We rotate being oncall and have to fill in shifts if we can't cover one. We work mon-fri but someone is oncall at all times. On the week ends we take turns going in andcounting the narc drawers. our facility is private owned and mostly all private pay.

[sheila0313]

um yeah, I would have to pass on that one. That sounds like a risk to your nursing licenses.

[MommaRN86]

Wowzers that sounds crazy, and I too work in AL. Its really not work risking your license which you worked so hard for, or worth hurting a patient. Good luck to you!

[LUV ALZ]

It seems to me they are using the title Assisted living and slipping in Pt's that need skilled care in order to not have to pay for the amount of staff required for pt's that require skilled care. I would pass or at least call the State and ask if it is permitted to have a such a high ratio of caregiver to residents and explain how many need skilled nursing care. Sounds like you would be risking your license to me.