Layout of your hospital's units

[abbaking]

I have a question for everybody. What is the layout (floorplan) like for your patient care units and how does the layout (floorplan) help or hurt the manner in which you give care?

I work on a 26-bed circular unit with the nurses station in the center, thus allowing the staff to visually see all our patients with realitive ease. All patient rooms are arranged so that they care directly see the nurses station and we are no more than 20 away. I think the circular layout is best for patient safety reason and also for staff, since we dont have to walk down a long traditional corridor ward-like unit.

[antidote]

Our hospital has a BIG circular, flat "stair case" going through the middle and there is a landing to get off onto each floor. All of the floors with the exception of the ICU and med-surg are boxed; meaning the nurses station is in the middle, and the rooms are around.

Our ER is THE most awfully laid out I've ever seen. We have a fairly decent size ER - and we have 3 massive gaping long hallways from the triage until the elevator all the way at the other end (with the exception of the staff elevator in the front which is used to transport trauma up, down and around. Anyways, this means if someone coded in the ER, people from the nurses station (which is right across from the triage) would need to run allllll the way down, make a right, and allllll the way down the end of that hall.

[NursePaula]

Our units are rectangle, the center having a huge desk, and at the ends of the center are the linen closets, showers, med room, etc. We can see many of our rooms, some are out of sight because of the storage rooms, but not far away. The large desk in the middle actually has seating for about 11 people pretty comfortably (which is the best I have ever seen) on our 36 bed surgical floor.

The last place that I worked though, the hospital has grown over the years, so "wings" kept getting added on all over the place. So depending on the census, you could be the only nurse in a hallway...kind of scary (especially at night when you were literally the only "staff" on the hall. Or worse yet, you could have a "split halls" assignment, meaning you had patients on both halls and relied on the other nurse to "watch" your patients while you were on the other hall. :uhoh21:

:Santa1:Merry Christmas!

Paula

[ORNurseAngie]

our unit is a 32 bed med surg unit that is shaped like an oval. The nurses station is all the way in the front. When you have the back hall which curves around you usually have patients on two halls. It is a horrible setup. You are constantly running up to the front for supplies, charts, meds, etc. By the end of two back to back twelves you are exhausted. Don't even let me get started on patients that code in those back rooms, as our one and only crash cart for our unit is also in the front of the hall, very heavy to push.