How many patients do you get on night duty?

Nurses Safety

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I get 6-7 7p-7a on ortho floor and having a very difficult time what is everyones ratios on there floors? I think ortho is esp hard because of all pain, mobility issue. Sigh I need an easier floor!

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Specializes in Trauma Surgical ICU.

When I was a floor nurse, 7 was the norm. My last facility made all nurses, day and night take 8 with one tech for 36 pts. I left and went to the ICU and have never looked back.

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Specializes in MDS.

LTC - 7p-7a - 20-40 (includes rehab unit - though rehab is usually between 20-30).

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Specializes in Cardiac/Progressive Care.

We are 4-5 on my progressive care unit., with 20 pts and 2 LNAs. Our ortho floor does 6-7, with 23 pts and I think 3 LNAs.

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4-6 on postpartum which translates into 8-10 or 11 pts including babies (usually not every mom has their baby with them or I will get a postoperative gyn)

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6-7 and I work nights on an ortho floor, but we also get many post op spinal and Neuro patients. All those Q2h CSM, Neuro exams, and Prn pain meds makes for a very busy night. No one sleeps on my unit.

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Specializes in Med/Surg,Cardiac.

8 on cardiac Stepdown unit. Running around and managing drips and post procedure issues can be very trying at times.

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

EEK 8 on a cardiac stepdown unit! Wow that seems way high eatmysoxRN. Our cardiac stepdown and ICU stepdown max is 5 at most. Our tele unit is 6. Ortho unit the nurse that has the ortho patients is 4. They do total care and no nurse aide to help. Surgical, and medical units can have up to 9 some nights. Most of the time they have 6-7.

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If I work a 12 hour shift, I start with 3 or 4, depending on if I'm on the admit list, and at 2300, I pick up 1-2 patients to end up with 5.

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On my medical unit, we have 4-5 patients per RN. We don't have CNAs and do RN total patient care.

It gets really hectic during 1900-2300 and we're hoping that they will give us an aide or a support nurse during that time. So far it hasn't been approved, but we're keeping our fingers crossed!

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Specializes in NICU.

Holy heck! Some of your ratios are nuts! I work a med/onc with tele, we max primary 5 at night. No aides. Our cardiac floor max primaries 6 at night.

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The units I have been on Cardio and Neuro we have 6.. however, we are short quite often so we end up having 8-9...on Neuro it's super heavy because 5/6 will most likely be totals.. My one night recently I had a 9 pts 7 of which were totals, 1 on a form, 1 trached, and 1 with chest tubes.. it was busy! But I got through it. I find on nights we work better as a team.

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