Is your NICU slow or busy?

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Our NICU has had a LOW census for about 2 months now. Is your NICU slow or busy right now? As soon as we get a few new babies, a few go home. I'm surprised at how long this has lasted. How long has your NICU been with a low census? (if it has happened)

Do the summer months tend to be slow?

Specializes in NICU.

My unit has been pretty slow all year... Our census is usually runs from the high 30's to the mid 40's. Lately we have been holding steady in the high 20's to low 30's. This time last year, we had 60+ babies... that was crazy! It was the only time I've seen us have a few 4 baby assignments, granted they were all easy feeder/growers, but still. Every time we get a few admits, a few more go home.

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Specializes in NICU.

It's been BUSY BUSY lately. But we had a slow run there for a while, which was weird ..... I've only been there for a little over a year, but our nurse manager was saying it was the slowest it's been in 5 years!

We weren't being forced to be cancelled, as they always cancelled the travelers first, but we could volunteer to be cancelled if we wanted. Thankfully it didn't last long though and now we're back up to the 60+ kids that is average for us. When we were slow we only had 40-50 at any one time, which made the unit look so empty!

Oh and we never have 3 in an assignment unless it's in the intermediate nursery with the feeder/growers. Our assignments are always 1:1 or 1:2 in the unit.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Our NICU is overflowing and usually is in the summer...all the holiday babies supposed to be born in Sept/Oct but come early...

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Hello,

Ok this is scary.... I am starting nursing school in the fall and NICU is a place that I wanted to work for some time now. The hospital that I have agreed to work for (Emory Crawford Long in Georgia) has a LEVEL 3 NICU and states that they also take babies from other regional hospitals. They told me that they have 24 neonatal beds (16 special care and 8 intensive care beds). Should these numbers concern me????:uhoh21:

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

We were really slow from Christmas until the beginning of May, then our census went from 13-15 (we "held" 35, with an average 28-30) to 32. We had several sets of twins and 2 sets of triplets come in 2 shifts! We also had adjusted our FTE's to allow more staff per shift, which had us often working with 12 RNs for 28 babies. Not bad.... We were so sick of getting called off all the time, we were glad for a little action. We'll see how it is in the new unit I'm starting on in a month.... I miss my babies soo much! I've been on vacation for 3 weeks now, and have to go to 4 wks of classes before unit orientation starts.... I'm ready to go back... it feels like I've been off forever!

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Specializes in labor & delivery.
I had 4 the other night. We usually have 3 or less (thanks to the ratio laws of course). The problem is our acuity is really high too. We have a lot of 1:1s and 1:2s.

This is slightly off topic, but...

I don't work NICU - but was offered a NICU job. I turned it down... but at that hospital nurses care for 2-3 babies if they're 1000g, and 5-8 "feeder/growers"... Just thought you all may find that interesting :)

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

A week and a half ago we were busting at the seams and lots of high acuity 1:1 (which takes some doing in our unit, just being on HFOV doesn't guarantee 1:1). But in the last 3-4 days we lost a few very sick babies, had 3 kids go for PDA ligation in one day and started feeling better, sent home a bunch of feeder-growers and all of a sudden we went from working with 23 RN's a shift to 18.

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Specializes in NICU, Telephone Triage.
Hello,

Ok this is scary.... I am starting nursing school in the fall and NICU is a place that I wanted to work for some time now. The hospital that I have agreed to work for (Emory Crawford Long in Georgia) has a LEVEL 3 NICU and states that they also take babies from other regional hospitals. They told me that they have 24 neonatal beds (16 special care and 8 intensive care beds). Should these numbers concern me????:uhoh21:

That's the size of my unit. You have a while before you start working. In the case of cancelling nurses, travelers are first, then per diem, then regular staff. So make sure you become regular staff..if taht's what you're worried about, or go to a hospital that can't cancel nurses, like the one I work for. Don't worry about it yet.

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Specializes in NICU.

Right now, my unit has more "step-down" babies than "nicu" babies. But we have 12 nicu beds and 18 step-down beds. We only have 2 vents running right now, so for us, that is slow. I work in an Atlanta-area hospital that sees alot of "no prenatal care" and "drug" babies. We have "spurts" of business. So like many others, we are on the slow side. I really hope it picks up! I love the overtime I can get from being busy!!

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Hey georgiagalRN,

Could you give me any information on Emory's Crawford Long's NICU?

Thanks

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Specializes in NICU.

I really don't know much about Crawford Long. I'm sorry I couldn't be any more help to you. :o. From what I've heard, it's a pretty good hospital and I know they have recently re-vamped their nicu.

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ok...THANKS... its not a big deal... I have a while before it really matters but I just wanted to ask around to get a feel for the place :rolleyes: I really think I want to work NICU but I start EMORY nursing school in the fall so we shall see.

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