Is low census a problem at your hospital???

[prosperouschick]

I was just wondering if many hospitals are dealing with the issue of there being a low census. For the past month or two, someone (and sometimes even two of us) routinely has to go home from our unit or gets cancelled and placed on call. I work at a smaller hospital in Central Texas and I wasn't sure if this trend exists in other parts of Texas as well. I am seriously considering looking at PRN work in other cities because I really want to work. Are any of you experiencing this trend at your hospital?? Please share.

[RedhairedNurse, BSN, RN]

yes we are experiencing this as well.

[butterbye04]

It seems everyone is having this problem.

[NurseSarahRN]

Yes, I have been being cancelled constantly!

[pdmech73]

Is this because fewer patients are insured or shorter length of stay in the hospital?

[j0nathanv]

I used to work at North Central Baptist Hospital in San Antonio. Our patient census went from a full board of 30 down to 12-15 over the weekend. Beng cancelled and put on call didnt work for me. Additionally, being a Med surge floor we would typicaly run minimal nurses wth each nurse carrying 6 patients with 1 admit.

[shah]

We had 1 full floor of the hospital shutdown for the entire month of August. When I found a prn job at another hospital, I could not work for more than 4 times in 3 months due to closures. Another hospital in the Bay Area intermttantly closed one out of 3 floors till December. Now there is a pre-holiday surge. I don't know how long will it last.

[abbabask]

Us too right now.. and I work in a major level 1 trauma center. We're getting cancelled and sent home all the time.

[HRGwen]

This is surprising to me. We are not experiencing this at Methodist in San Antonio

[calif-me]

I'm o.k. with it as long as my PTO holds out. I'm hoping to get moved from Med/Surg to Ped by next month. Somtimes the stress in Med/Surg is too much, so i'm glad when i'm called off which has been twice this week already.