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

Specialties Med-Surg

Published

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.

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!!)

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

Specializes in Med-Surg, Neuro, Respiratory.

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

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.

Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.

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.

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

Whaaaaaat???!! That's INSANE

Specializes in Med Surg, Tele, Ortho.

5 on days. 7 max on nights.

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! :dead:

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

Specializes in Education, Administration, Magnet.

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.

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

Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.

13???!!!

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