Staffing level in NICU?

[RNDreamer]

Hello all:

In the others forums, I read about how the staffing levels are low and the nurses are taking care of too many patients because hospitalsd do not want to hire more nurses. Does this happen in the NICU as well? Or do the nurses always have a limit to the number of babies they care for, like no more than 2 or 3 per shift? What is the maximum number of babies you can take before it becomes a threat to your license? Thank you very much in advance.

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

I read policy's /procedures if it is really slow, but in reality if everything that needs to be done is being done, like changing out isollettes, allowing parents to Kangaroo their CPAP babies, all the double checks, reinforcing parent teaching, etc then there really are things to do most of the time.

It's great that you have the staffing and resources to do all that. Consider yourself VERY lucky. It truly is hard to fit all that in with 3 CPAPs or 2 vents, which is the norm here where I work.

[Imafloat, BSN, RN]

It's great that you have the staffing and resources to do all that. Consider yourself VERY lucky. It truly is hard to fit all that in with 3 CPAPs or 2 vents, which is the norm here where I work.

Normally our staffing is decent. The past 2-3 months both our census and acuity have gone up and it is causing a lot of stress. Babies that are supposed to be 1:1 are having to be 1:2. I have had assignments of 4 babies, with 2 of them being vented (stable). Our manager is continually hiring more nurses, but it takes time to train them. We don't normally have a staffing problem, many of the nurses have been on the unit for 15-20 years. I know that by the time the new nurses are trained and on their own our census will be back to normal.

Is anyone seeing a big increase in the number of twins?

[RainDreamer, BSN, RN]

I read policy's /procedures if it is really slow, but in reality if everything that needs to be done is being done, like changing out isollettes, allowing parents to Kangaroo their CPAP babies, all the double checks, reinforcing parent teaching, etc then there really are things to do most of the time.

I bet your incidence of unplanned extubations is pretty low.