Is 7 the new 5?

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I just returned to Med/Surg after 2 years in Home Health (nurse for about 10 yrs total). I'm appalled that administration thinks nothing of calling off nurses and loading the ones working with 7 patients! Is anyone else encountering this? I feel like my entire shift is putting out fires and flying through documentation so that I won't get caught in overtime. Then when nurses leave, the reaction is "why"???

Also, my hospital is a magnet hospital three times certified and working on getting the 4th in the next 2-3 years. You'd think since magnet is about nurses they wouldn't certify if the nurses were that unhappy with that many patients. Am I incorrect in this thinking???

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Specializes in Med Surg, Home Health, Dialysis, Tele.

Believe me that Magnet status has nothing to do with it!

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Our floor before hired was told we can have up to 8 pts. Since I started working there 6 is the max but the norm is 5 pts per nurses.

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Our day shift has anywhere from 5-11, and our night shift has anywhere from 8-13. CNAs have up to 42.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
Do you work at my hospital? That's been happening a lot lately and no one is happy about it. Most of our floor is looking for another job which is sad because every one of them say they actually like our floor but they can't deal with the workload. This has been happening after management did a survey on our floor to see why we have such a huge staff turn-over.

And they thought by INCREASING the workload they would have a lower staff turn-over? :rolleyes:

The med-surg units at my hospital typically are 1:6 but they have pushed to 1:7-8 in some cases.

I work on a progressive care unit and our ratio used to be strictly 1:4 but now it can be 1:5.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical / Palliative/ Hospice.

I have been a med-surg nurse for almost fourteen years. I have done a lot of traveling and worked in different facilities and states... every place is different. Most places like to think they staff per acuity, but very few actually do. It seems like over the past few years med-surg nurses are expected to do much more, for way sicker patients, and the ratios haven't changed all that much. Last week I had five patients - three in isolation and confused, all five with central lines, one with epidural pain control, one on telemetry, one with Q2H IV pain medication, etc. Ten years ago I never experienced epidurals or telemetry on a med-surg unit. Some days I am running my butt off with four unstable or demanding patients, other days I can handle six or seven very stable patients, and still have some down time. That's med-surg... you never know what your shift will be like!

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

Interesting study in the November issue of AJN regarding nurse burnout (increased workload!) and nosocomial infections:

Statistical models showed that increasing the workload by one patient per nurse added one infection per 1,000 patients, or 1,351 infections annually. And a 10% increase in the proportion of nurses with burnout added one catheter associated urinary tract and two surgical-site infections per 1,000 patients. However, according to the modes, if nurse burnout rates could be reduced by 10%, hospitals could prevent 4,160 infections and save $41 million annually. The authors speculate that when nurses experience burnout, they may forget to wash their hands and practice other infection control procedures.

Potera, C. (2012). Reducing nurse burnout might reduce hospital-acquired infections. American journal of nursing, 15.

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