Med Surg Nurses: How many patients do you care for?

[cheez1285]

Hi all! How many patients are you allowed to care of at a time on your med surg floor during days or nights? In our hospital, on days, we go up to 6 and night shift can take up to 7. Just curious. I work at a hospital near Chicago.

[elizabell]

Normally 5. Occasionally, if no one calls out, and the acuity is high enough, we might go down to 4 on days. We rotate turns taking 6 at night but 5 is the standard at night. Out of the 5, you're lucky to have 1 walkie-talkie. Most are q4 VS and OOB with staff only. On day shift, you normally have 2 discharges + 2 post-ops (so you really see 7 pts over the course of the day). On nights, you typically start with 4 pts and an empty -- the empty room is either filled with a post-op early in the shift or an ED admission in the middle of the night. (but, no doubt about it, that room will get filled!!)

[Purestofhearts]

I can have 10 patients, and on most nights I have 8-9. I'm in ky. Very hard for a new nurse.

[buytheshoes11, MSN, RN]

Five on a med-surg floor...occasionally four if the patients are all high acuity.

[jmll1765, ASN, RN]

I work as a charge nurse on nights, we usually have 6 patients per nurse. When the other nurses have 6 each and we get more admissions I start taking patients. Occasionally we will have 7 each. Day shift works a bit differently, they take more patients each so their charge nurse can be a charge nurse. They have discharges and daily rounding with the Drs, so they really need a charge nurse. I find that 4-5 patients is a good number for me. Of course there are times when you only have 3 patients but they feel like 30! I'm fortunate that I work with a team that really works well together. We help each other out and no one leaves in the mornings without first checking to see if any of us need anything.

[DizzyLizzyNurse]

5 - 9 patients on night shift in NY. We have 2-4 PCAs for the 36 bed unit depending on who calls in. No secretary and the PCAs do all the blood work.

[brithoover]

for the past month 10 both on days and nights:cry: I'm in NC

Whaaaaaat???!! That's INSANE

[teleRN08]

5 on days. 7 max on nights.

[EHNurse19]

I work on a general surgery floor but tend to get medical patients from time to time. We generally have 3-4 patients on day/evening shift. Night shift we try to keep it at 6 or below per nurse but all depends on what we have for staffing. Nurses have started out their day/evening shifts with 5 patients and have had as many at 8-9 patients on night shift when our floor is short staffed. Crazy some of the numbers that I have read on here!

[akker71]

I work in a unit the the ratio is 5:1. I think that's doable and enough.

[NurseLatteDNP, MSN, DNP, RN]

5:1 days and 6:1 on nights, here in north Texas. If we are short that may increase by 1. All shifts have nurse aides.

[j.ll]

6 during the day, 8-9 in the evening and 13 on the night shifts. I'm going crazy!!

[DizzyLizzyNurse]

13???!!!