patient load on your neuro floor

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was curious to find out what the average patient ratio is on a neuro floor? I worked on a combined neuro ortho floor and it was 4-5 which at times was difficult, having 2 post ops ortho pts and add on 2-3 confused patients with evd drains lol

i got a job offer for a neuro floor stroke certified center rated number 1 in my state. i am assuming they will be high acuity patients too. the ratio on this floor is 5. and in neuro icu 2.

thoughts?

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I work in pediatrics so I can only comment on that and not adults. Further, my ICU handles all types of patients with the exception (generally) of cardiac patients as we have a separate ICU for that. We are a well known hospital when it comes to neurology/neurosurgery and those pts make up a large portion of our pt population at any given time. Our ICU pt load is 1 or 2 depending on acuity. The floor is 4-5, again depending on acuity but usually it is 4 pts. Pts with EVDs go to step down where the pt load is generally 3. In addition, pts confused enough to be a significant falls risk or at risk for pulling lines and such will often have a sitter. Again, I have never worked with adults and don't know if these same numbers apply to that population even in the hospital I work for, but I figured as long as I clarified that, it couldn't hurt to provide you with what I could. Hopefully some other nurses with more relevant experiences will also reply.P.S. Sorry for any typos or grammatical errors. I typed this on an iPad with its less than ideal keyboard and often terrible (yet humorous) autocorrect.

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Specializes in Neuroscience.

I just got hired at a hospital in Detroit for Neuro/Trauma/Tele and I am starting on night shift. The nurse manager told me that I will have 5-6 on nights.:nurse:

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I work at a large university hospital on a neuro/neurosurg thats classified as a med/surg floor but we also often have pts on tele. Our ratios are usually 5:1 occasionally if staffing is really good we have 4. Mostly 5 tho, also our acuity is at a high level. At times I think that this can be unsafe but thats how it is.

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thamks!

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I work on a neuro /ortho unit in a level II trauma center. Our floor has about 50 beds. On day shift, the nurse to patient ratio is 1:5 and on night shift we have 1:7. Sometimes I feel as though I can't give my pts everything they deserve. On nights that we are staffed well. I have had 5 pts with an admittion to make 6 pts. This is more doable. 7 is really stressful. Most nights that I have 7 patients I don't get any breaks so I can give my patients 100%.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Neuro, Respiratory.

Our floor specializes in neuro but we take med-surg patients too, so our limit is 1:5. On our neuro/trauma unit it is 1:2.

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I no longer work neuro med/surg tele (we were "classified" as stepdown acuity). When I did - we averaged 1:4 or 1:5 (sometimes 1:6) on days. On nights (my primary shift) it was more like 1:5. 1:6 and sometimes 1:7 (BAD BAD memories, grateful it was only one night!). We were a 31 bed unit at a university affiliated level 1 trauma center, and our unit had the ability to monitor tele on 25 of our 31 beds. Our unit was responsible for "remote monitoring" for two other units - trauma stepdown/med/surg had 10 tele beds, and our ortho med/surg had 5 tele beds...so our tele certified unit clerk or an LPN or RN assigned to work the desk got to watch up to 40 patients on tele). Our patients ranged from post op general surgery patients to ICU stepdown with severely neuro compromised patients. We got some of everything - chronic kidney disease, acute renal failure, CHF, cancer, subdural hematoma, ischemic CVA, DM, complications from DM - the list goes on. We frequently got the chest pain patients too...because we could monitor them on tele.

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That sounds insane!

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Our hospital is a Level I Trauma Center and we are also an Advanced Primary Stroke Center. Our floor is considered Cerebrovascular/Diabetes with Telemetry and there are 38 beds. We are trying to keep a nurse/patient ratio of 1:4 to 5 but it has been difficult lately. We also plan on going for the Comprehensive Stroke Center designation this fall.

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Wow I'm jealous. I work in NYC Neuro floor/step down and we are lucky if we get a 1:5 ratio. Usually 1:7-8 :( . I hate working in such unsafe conditions!

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I work on a combined neuro/ortho floor on days and we get 5 patients. Can get super nuts when your fresh post ops come back then crazy old stroke man is climbing out of bed. Keeps you on your toes!!

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