staffing ratios

That's the standard that most hospitals try to maintain. IMO those that are tightly regulated, such as California and unionized hospitals, as well as most top-tier hospitals seem to have consistent ratios. Other hospitals aim for the same ratios, but often fall short for numerous reasons, and have to "make do" with the staff on hand.

In my unit we are staffed 1:1 with vent babies and freshly extubated, and with new admissions and 2:1 with everything else. We are all level 3 & 4 here. Feeder/growers go to a completely separate intermediate care unit, where they are still staffed 2:1, or 3:1 at the very most, or they are transferred back to their own hospitals.

I am sitting here tonight with my one intubated baby. I did have to pick up a trached baby earlier as his nurse had gotten an admission, but I only had the second baby for 4 hours.

I will admit, we are very spoiled here in my unit. I have worked in other units where we had a mix of level 2 and level 3 babies and staffing ratios were more like other units. But our unit here is level 3 & 4 only.

Hello and welcome to the wonderful family of allnurses.com. Enjoy your stay, and best of luck to you. :)

Oh, in a perfect world.... I commented at work recently, "Yes, Virginia, there are NICU's like that." I currently work in a unit that has terrible staffing and the assingments are often brutal. There's no such thing as 1:1, which was a rude awakening. Having worked several other places around the US, I think of it as NICU in the trenches. It's not that the hospital won't hire nurses, there just aren't enough avialable. They even have a great sign on bonus and excellent pay, but for as rapidly as the city has grown, the medical systems just can't keep up. We use a lot of travelers, and also have an exceptional manager that will work if necessary. The other NICU's in the city are in the same boat. It's great nursing though, and I love it. We have a lot of autonomy, nursing judgement is highly encouraged, and we can do a lot of things that only NNPs can do at other places. We also have a very progessive staff of doctors. It's the most fulfilling NICU job I've had.