I have worked my entire career in the LTC setting in the state of Illinois. I would like some input from my fellow LTC nurses from around the US to help me decide if I should move to a different state or if things are the same everywhere. I appreciate your time and thank you all in advance:
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents.
2. What is the nursing to patient ratio?
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio?
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents?
5. Is your facility doing computer charting?
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime?
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting?
8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe?
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise?
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing?
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents. 125, generally we're at >90% capacity.
What is the nursing to patient ratio? about 30:1, with a 4-hour med nurse for the heavier wings
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? about 10:1
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? Yes, but it's always a rush
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? Yes
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? No, just on-call quarterly
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? two and a half years8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? Yes
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise? Rehab, long-term and dementia unit
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? about $26/hr, I'm not personally underpaid in my position, but the other nurses are. (I work a unit-manager position, and I'm only part-time, don't rely on the wage) The nurses I work with have had only a $.30 wage increase over the past 3+ years. It's ridiculous.
1. What size is your LTC facility? Four floors- 150 total
2. What is the nursing to patient ratio? 1 LPN or RN per LTC unit, approx 38 residents, 2 nurses per rehab unit 30ish residents per nurse. My floor- days 7-3 or evenings 3-11: 1 nurse, 4 CNAs, and 1 med aide who gives all PO meds including narcs.
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? My floor- LTC- Days and evenings 4 CNAs to 38 residents, on nights 2 CNAs to 38 residents
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? Generally speaking, yes
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? Yes.
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? No.
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? Almost 8 years
8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? For the most part.
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? Yes, rehab, dementia in locked unit, high functioning A/O x3, dementia mixed in with non-dementia, generally divided by floor.
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? $ 27.50 per hour for days, 30.50 per hour evenings and 32.50 per hour weekends, holiday pay, and double-time if staff is needed badly. No, I don't feel underpaid.
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents. 180 patients
2. What is the nursing to patient ratio? On days and evenings, one nurse to 26-33 patients. On nights, one nurse to 50-60 patients.
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? Usually 1-10, sometimes 1-15.
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? No, not at all. But we do the best we can.
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? Mostly. MARS and TARS still aren't computerized.
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? No
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? Almost one year.
8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? I try to, but no, not always.
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise? On my floor, there are plenty of sub acute, psych, and homeless patients.
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? $25/hour, and sometimes yes, given that I am given the same ratio on subacute as nurses in my facility receive in long term care, and no wage differences.
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents. 102
2. What is the nursing to patient ratio? depends on the hall, but approx 1:26
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? day shift 4:26, evening 2:26, night 1:26
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? yes
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? yes
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? I work evening shift, so only if there is a call-out on night shift. It's based on whose turn it is stay over. I have only had to do a double twice in the time I have worked there. We can refuse to stay but it's a write up. If I get a call on my day off, that is usually when I try to get my turn out of the way. Its better than doing a 16 hour shift.
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? 1 1/2 years
8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? on my hall, yes.
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise? We are a nursing and rehab facility, so yes. We do not have homeless.
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? I work evening shift so I get a pay differential. $22.50/hr. Anything over 8 hours goes into overtime. Double pay for holidays. Of course I'd like to make more, but I do love my residents and my job.
11. What state are you practicing in? I am in a small town in Maryland where cost of living is much lower than the rest of the state.
Specializes in Utilization Review, Critical Care, OR, SNF.
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents. 120, 90% capacity varies up to 100% based on skilled census
2. What is the nursing to patient ratio? Skilled 1:15. LTC 1:45 with med tech passing all meds
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? day shift 1:10, evenings 1:15, nights 1:15
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? Yes
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? yes
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? I only work Sundays, 12 hours. Formerly, I was the DON of this facility, however, my current full time job is in UR for a large insurance company. Much better than being a DON. I work PRN so that I don't lose my skills.
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? Since 2003
8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? Yes
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise? 30 Skilled, 90 typical geriatric
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? Days, 30$/hr. No PRN differential, which would be nice. I'm satisfied, given that this is a second job. Wouldn't be so satisfied if I didn't have a very good income from my full-time gig.
Thanks everyone who has replied thus far, seems the answer sadly is things are about the same all over. I was a bit tired when posting and didnt even notice my ratios were backwards *ack*
A lot of your questions are really more facility-dependent than state-dependent. I work in two different facilities (within the same state) that have very different answers to some of these questions.
I'm also in IL. Things vary vastly in the state... how close you are to chicago, etc. I work in a very low acuity religious-based facility. We very occasionally do IVs, have no trachs, no vents, no g-tubes, one colostomy and have discharged a couple residents to other facilities for being seriously violent toward staff.
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents. 110, we're at 70% currently. This includes our skilled unit and our shelter care which has 20 beds.
2. What is the nursing to patient ratio? We have 3 nurses on day shift, and now run with 2 on evenings and nights. When our census increases we'll return to 3 nurses on evenings, which is our standard.
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? Our absolute minimum # of CNAs is 5 on 1-2 shift and 2 on night shift, which only happens when we have multiple call offs and no one to mandate. Typically we have 8-10 on day shift (including a shower aid and a rehab aid) 6-7 on 2nd shift and 3 on night shift with our current census.
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? Not always, but most of the time I'm able to give them individualized attention if needed.
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? Yes
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? Yes
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? Nearly 2 years
8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? When things aren't going absolutely insane, yes
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise? Yes
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? I make $22.60 as an RN. I'm the lowest paid RN in the facility. We Have a $1 shift differential for evenings/nights, and $2 differential for weekends, double time on holidays.
2. nursing ratio? - 20:1 Days and Evenings, 30:1 Nights
3. CNA ratio? - about 10:1 Days and Evenings, don't know night ratio.
4. able to provide quality nursing care? - Not for every patient, no, but we're better than some.
5. computer charting? - Yes
6. mandated overtime? - No
7. How long in the LTC setting? - 6 months, first RN job
8. able to keep residents safe? - Not as safe as we'd like to be, especially with preventing falls.
9. mixture of residents? - Rehab/SNF and LTC
10. wage? underpaid? - $26/hr PRN. I don't feel underpaid, but the LPN's in my facility are paid considerably less to do the same work, so they feel underpaid.
4. I give all my residents quality care, but I'm not able to do everything that they deserve.
5. Mostly computer charting, some paper.
6. Not "mandatory" OT perse but I always have OT due to understaffing.
7. I started in LTC after I got my RN license. I have been employed for a little over a year now.
8. No, I feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells, just waiting for something tragic to happen. Our aides aren't allowed to do cpr, so it's up to the nurses (4 max at a time).
9. Mix of rehab, long term, lock down alzheimers.
10. 25.75/hr. I feel like I am underpaid for doing the jobs of a supervisor, med nurse, TX nurse, housekeeper, aide and waitress. And documentation on top of that.
JBMmom, MSN, NP
4 Articles; 2,537 Posts
1. What size is your LTC facility? I.E. Maximum capacity for residents. 125, generally we're at >90% capacity.
What is the nursing to patient ratio? about 30:1, with a 4-hour med nurse for the heavier wings
3. What is the CNA to patient ratio? about 10:1
4. Do you feel you are able to provide quality nursing care to your residents? Yes, but it's always a rush
5. Is your facility doing computer charting? Yes
6. Are you subject to mandated overtime? No, just on-call quarterly
7. How long have you been nursing in the LTC setting? two and a half years8. Do you feel that you are able to keep your various residents safe? Yes
9. Does your LTC home have a mixture of residents? I.E. Rehab to home, typical geriatric, psych, homeless otherwise? Rehab, long-term and dementia unit
10. What is your hourly wage (ballpark) and do you feel you are underpaid for the work you are doing? about $26/hr, I'm not personally underpaid in my position, but the other nurses are. (I work a unit-manager position, and I'm only part-time, don't rely on the wage) The nurses I work with have had only a $.30 wage increase over the past 3+ years. It's ridiculous.
11. What state are you practicing in? CT