Dear colleagues, My name is Kurt De Maeyer and I'm a head nurse in a cardiochirurgic icu in a universital hospital in Belgium. Since a few months we have a serious increas of bivads (Excor, Berlin Heart)in our service (4 out of 7 patients). Since my staffing isn't really made for 'coping' with such patients and a yearly budget meeting with the hospital top is planned in september, I'm looking for information on nursing-patient staff ratio's with such patients. Do you have scientific literature about the nursing-patient staff ratio's in settings with Bivad's or are you willing to inform me about those ratio's in your service ? Thank you very much,