Oncology Nurse/Patient Ratio

miss RNC

Are you talking about acuity grids? I cannot get that yet. I know on the unit I start on in sept. the ratio is 1 to 5 or 1 to 8 with a PCA. I am going back to the hospital after being in home health since 91. I worked 6.5 years on an oncology/bmt unit and our ratio varied greatly. Used to be 1 to 5 but we had no LPNS or PCAs. Personally I will be glad to have a team member to help me.............

Does that help you?

renerian

27 patients gives us 9 nurses, 4 techs and 1 MR. That's what we are allowed to have. If you don't have 9 nurses, you just suck it up. We do have some variance with acuity. I have worked with 8 and been bored and I have had days where I would have sold my soul for nurse #10!

that averages out to 3-4 patients per RN. Not a bad ratio!

We work 12 hour shifts. On days we have 4-5 patients. On nights we have 9 each. We are only staffed with RN's. These patients include stem cell transplants, leukemics, febrile neutropenics, pain control and usually a few palliative. Days are usually manageable but the nights are pretty scary.

We are an 8 bed bmt unit. We have been running short staffed with a 1:4 ratio. Today was a good day according to our BMT nurses.... 1:2 ratio....1 pca, 1 sitter for confused pt, no huc

Some days it can be 1:3/ 1:4 ,with 1 or 2 pca's

On nights it is usually 1:4 ,with 1 pca, no huc

I work on a 20-bed unit on evenings. Our ratio is usually 1:4 - 1:6 with 2 PCT's. Day shift runs 1:4 with 4 PCTS, and nights runs with 1:6 - 1:9 with 1-2 PCT's. Plus we have telemetry capabilities for overflow cardiac/medical pts (UGH!). Very busy floor!

:roll

I'm new at this so bare with me, please. The ward can hold 24 patients, its supposed to be medicine/oncology but we get all kinds from psych to ortho, surgery, telemetry, etc. our acuity systems, based on a census of 18, says we should have 4 RN's, 4 LPN's and 4 CNA,s on days and 3 RN's, 4 LPN's, and 3 CNA's on nights. We're really lucky though if we have 6 nurses total and 4 CNS's on Days and 5 nurses and 3 CNA's on days. This may sould like a lot but when you factor in that this is a medical teaching facility for doctors and that the nurses on the floor usually have from zero to 16 months experience in nursing, its a nightmare. We also have job corps trainees and nursing students on the floor.

We normally have 2-3 patients around the clock with a maximum of 3. You may pick up a 4th depending on the acuity of your patients but it would only be until they could get another RN in.

We have 2 PCA's on days. There are no PCA's on nights. There are 2 Unit Coordinators during the day and 1 on nights. We do our last assessments at 2400. If there are no serious complications with our patient then we leave them to get their rest at night.

We are an Oncology/Bone Marrow Transplant Unit with 4 bed ICU. The majority of the patients are ambulatory. Out entire unit is under Neutropenic Protocol. A lot of the work is more time consuming than anything. On 1 patient you are hanging 2 units of PRBC's and a 6 pack of platelets. Then you are giving that same patient 2 types of Chemo. By the time you pass meds, hang antibiotics, premedicate for blood products, spend 15 minutes of assessing for 3 units of blood products with 3 patients and then take that down, premedicate for Chemo and hang 2 types of Chemo while all the time checking VS, assessing, giving baths, changing beds, charting and checking I&O's your day is pretty well shot!

Of course it is not too bad if everybody is doing well. It looks like to me even on my worse night I am doing better than most of the rest of you! If I am getting slammed I have some really great support! For the most part I can't complain. After I noticed some of you have 8-9 patients now I know I won't ever complain again!

I work 12 hour nights. On a good night I have 8, on a bad night I have 10