Survey: Has your facility implemented nurse to patient ratios?

TriskixRN · Jan 6, 2004

Yes, if you want to call it that. We are not staffing for acuity. We have a staff to patient ratio of six patients to one nurse (dayshift) and it drops accordingly for each shift. Not bad for hospital staffing. However, I believe everyone would be happier if the aquity were taken into consideration. :rolleyes: :idea:

zacarias, ASN, RN · Jan 7, 2004

The ratio is about 4:1 on the Gen Med floor I work on. We do take acuity in mind and sometimes we only have three patients.

CCU NRS · Jan 7, 2004

Why did they ever get away from acuity as the design for nurse to Pt ratio? My only guess is because if you take acuity into account you would need more nurses and you Pt ratios would be lower. They still count acuity for the benefit of the floor but they do not staff accordingly

rn-jane · Jan 8, 2004

I wish we had a nurse-patient ratio, it all depends on your staff and how many beds are open on your floor. There are at times i have 8-12 patients (nights) and they will load you with admissions as long they can find a bed, which is probally why i' m looking elsewhere for a job. Granted acuity is the proper way to go but if we had a proper nurse-patient ratio i'd would not be leaving my facility.

TriskixRN · Jan 8, 2004

Just b/c a hospital or other facility says they implemented a patient staff ratio doen't mean it is upheld. 8 - 12 on nightshift .... is what I often had when I worked OB - GYN on nights and the RN wasn't required to take patients. At times I had that many patients and was running my self to death d/t 3+ of them were fresh c- sections or other surgeries. It was too demanding and I couldn't keep it up .... went for a position in the clinics.

Acuity, I believe, is the most important factor for staffing. I could have handled that many vag dels (regardless of para) without much difficulty but throw in those fresh surgeries and Wham! No breaks, no lunch, no time to do real accurate charting, less patient satisfaction, and no time to work with the other nurses if they needed help (they didn't have time to help me if I needed it either -- raising the safety risks). The lack of acuity considered staffing causes a decrease in teamwork, decreased patient and nurse satisfaction, and worst of all decreases effiecient / effective nursing care and increases stress / risk.

Its not a watch your back I'll watch mine world.......

If we don't watch out for each other and help each other we all lose! We all watch each other so lets watch out for each other. :nurse: :wink2:

bellehill, RN · Jan 8, 2004

Originally posted by zacarias
The ratio is about 4:1 on the Gen Med floor I work on. We do take acuity in mind and sometimes we only have three patients.

Sounds like heaven, can I come work with you?!?! :)

Where I am now the ratio is 7-9 for nights with no acuity taken into consideration.

lakelady45 · Jan 8, 2004

I had the question of what the state regs. are for aides to patient ratio and no one either knows or hasn't answered me yet. I am a CNA at a Mo. veterans home and 99% of the time we are trying to care for 12 to13 residents who are all on the total care unit, plus trying to do 5to6 baths on our side of the hall. Can someone please find out what the ratio is suppose to be acording to state and let me know? Thank-You

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Jan 8, 2004

Originally posted by zacarias
The ratio is about 4:1 on the Gen Med floor I work on. We do take acuity in mind and sometimes we only have three patients.

I didn't think such staffing existed on this earth. Can it really be true? OMG....

barefootlady, ADN, RN · Jan 9, 2004

Ratio is 6:1 days, unless beds are empty, then goes up, no thought given to acuity. 7 or 8:1 on evenings and open for admissions, then on nights often 10 or more to each nurse.

CNA's do have assignments, it's just getting them to do them, this is a hospital facility.

nursecompassion · Jan 9, 2004

At my facility is it one nurse or one aide to 15 residents.

At night for example (we have four halls and one alzheimers unit) there are usually two aides and one nurse for each hall.

Two halls can house up to 24 residents, the alzheimers 16, one hall 42 and one 36. Anyway altoghether it should equal about 142 beds.

Night shift aides usually have 8 r each to bath, dress in am.

Bkfst is served between 7a-730a.

THe aides on 5-1 have up to 8 r. The aides on 6-2 have 6-8 residents. THis all depends on the showers and all. However beds still have to be changed, etc.

At night the shift I work we have three bedchecks, as well as turning r, and anwering call lights (depending if it is a skilled hall you will have more lights), cleaning, laying out linens, clothes, etc.

STart at 4:30 and on our hall night shift work together getting r bathe,dressed, and up. Bathing means full baths, face, hands,back, arms, pericare, etc. Usually ends up with 15min per resident however some take longer or less time.

you have to learn to work fast and be very good at what you do and like it.

Some aides may not like their jobs and don't care thus the r suffers. They may "forget" to do a bedcheck or only give a partial bath, or dress them in non matching outfits.

long anwer hugh? jules

NYCRN16 · Jan 10, 2004

We do not have a nurse to patient ratio, there are many nights (in the ER) that we have about 10-12, with the average around 8. Acuity is not taken into consideration. I am really scared for my license some nights, and I am really considering leaving. Anyone else in ER have this many patients on a regular basis?