nurse to pt.ratios

[angltnk]

Hi.........I am a LPN in Kansas. I work the noc shift. There are 60 residents on my unit , that I am responsible for . I feel so overwhelmed . I am just curious how other LTC facilities are staffed.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

Unfortunately, that sound almost right from what others have been posting.

Your state should have some type of staffing guidelines and you might be able to find them online.

Personally, I couldn't do more than the 48 pts I have (with 2 CNAs) for 11-7.

[bjs54321]

Well ratios do vary. In some facilities...it is overwhelming. I work a subacute/transitional unit...I have 18 pts by myself and a cna for less than 4 hours of my shift. I do alot of toileting...prn meds.. plus all of the nursing work. I am also in charge of the 70 LTC beds we have. On my travel assignment....in a hospital...I have 2-3 pts...very nice.

I've had it worse...hang in there. I keep telling myself...all I can do is the best I can do...so I will.

[snowfreeze, BSN, RN]

The LTC facility I work in on a casual basis has a variety of assignments (9 units) but the highest nurse patient ratio there is 36:1 with 4 nurse aids on daylight. Evenings has same ratio and nights has .5 nurse (nurse is split between two units) and 2 nurse aids. The nurse who splits units also has a 14 bed unit with 2 nurse aids at night. On units with higher acuities and more blood sugars and night time meds the nurse patient ratio is not more than 30:1 The unit with ventilator patients ratio is 20:1 at night but has a lot of 5am meds to pass but no treatments. The higher night time med pass allows the daylight nurse with same ratio time to do the treatments. We have a fulltime respiratory department to care for the ventilator patients although nurses do suction when needed.

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

On our long term unit we have 1 nurse and 2 or 3 CNAs for 60 patients. Subacute and dementia units have one nurse and 2 CNAs for 41 patients 11-7.

[FrustratedLPN]

I'll agree, it is unfortunate, but this seems to be typical for ltc facilities. I have worked in both Florida and Tennessee for LTC/Skilled facilities.. and the ration seems to be mid 30's to 1. If you're lucky you have two cna's but at times there is only one cna to staff if someone calls in and there is no one to replace the absentee.

Hence, you might can see where I chose the user name I did!! Should there be an emergency during the shift, all you can do is pray no one else gets sick.. has a fall.. or needs immediate attention.

[superbratnurse]

in my state (Arkansas) the legal ratio is 40/1 on days and evenings and 80/1 on nights (11/7) of course there are ways to get around that, and it depends how your facility is broken up... in my facility the lowest assignment is about 30-35 and the highest is 40-48, and anywhere from 50 at the lowest and 90 at the highest at night, depending on census...but it is acceptable, due to the number of nurses in the building 5 med nurses during the day for a census of less than 190 at the moment, and 4 at night...what they do is take the number of liscensed personnell and divide the census by it. and thats not counting the RN and LPN unit managers, there are 2 RNs and 2 LPNs during the day...the medicare RN, the 2 MDS/careplan RNs, and the ADON and DON.

~Brat