Survey: Has your facility implemented nurse to patient ratios?

Published

Here are the results of last months survey question

Has your facility implemented nurse to patient ratios? :

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Please feel free to read and post any comments that you have right here in this discussion thread by clicking the "Post Reply" button.

Thanks

I work in an Emergency room and it is hard to to have the nurse:patient ratio. As a team leader I am not supossed to take a patient assignment and if I do not have the staff I have to close beds. That does not help when all of a sudden you have level 1's or emergent that have just been triaged and need to come back. Last week I took an assignment because of those such issues and I was informed that I should not have taken the assignment. Then there are times that you may have a couple of patients on the vent waiting to go up to their room and it is hard to reasign the other patients because you still have these extra patients and no extra nurses.

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Originally posted by rollingstone

4:1 at University Medical Center in Tucson.

The recruiter at this hospital told me that it was 4:1 and I have often wondered if it was true from the nurse's perspective....I guess so. Thanks for clarifying.

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Specializes in Cardiac, home care, management.

When New York State dictates that there is a nurse to patient ratio, then the hospital I work for will implement what ever law they have to follow. Otherwise, the nurses can only speak up for themselves.

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I want to work where some of you all work!!! On our 35-bed telemetry unit, we work 6:1, plus a designated LPN, so for RNs it works out to 12:1. That's days! And although we note acuity on the assignment sheet, it's not unusual to have 2-3 of the 6 in isolation, and most total care.

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:rolleyes:
For those of you who do work in units that use acuity, how do you measure the acuity factor? Is it strictly by nuring judgement or is there an "objective" system you use??
As an RN on on a 28 bed medical telemetry unit we are in the process of developing an objective acuity assessment tool. To be honest I'm not sure that is really what nurses want. By implementing an acuity tool to determine staffing one nurse might have 4 patients while another nurse might have 6 patients depending on the level of acuity.
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We have a "grid." Not many are happy with it, and it's not always followed. More often than not the already-strapped staffing grid is reduced....

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Med-surg ortho floor with medicine overflow: never more than 4 patients on day shift. If acuity is high, only 3 patients. If very, very challenging, charge nurse also helps.

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:rolleyes: As an RN on on a 28 bed medical telemetry unit we are in the process of developing an objective acuity assessment tool. To be honest I'm not sure that is really what nurses want. By implementing an acuity tool to determine staffing one nurse might have 4 patients while another nurse might have 6 patients depending on the level of acuity.
addendum:03/16/04

I have spent many hours scanning the internet trying to find an example of an acuity assessment tool. I have found many refeferences to such but not seen the actual thing. California and New York who have mandated nurse/pt ratios should have some sort of tool since it is mentioned in both states laws pertaining to staffing.How about it California and NY nurses?

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I work 2300 to 0730 nurse/patient ratio averages 9 to 1 and this is in the Mid West if any body is interested.

Cat

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There are no mandated ratios for NY except for critical care

If there were I would still be working in a hospital :p

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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

I am a RN at hospital in NC. Our CNA take half of the 33 beds up to the whole 33 beds. I feel sorry for them, we are understaffed as well, but we try to help each other out.

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We have a "grid." Not many are happy with it, and it's not always followed. More often than not the already-strapped staffing grid is reduced....

Ah yes, the GRID system....it never accounts for the involved care we give patients. It is a body count, ratio of patients to nurse. We are always short staffed on day shift and afternoon shift. (ORTHO unit) On Night shift we each get 7 patients and work like crazy without a CNA. It doesn't take into account the obese, nasty, demanding and confused patients. Once I had 7 and a total knee patient got out of bed in the dark, fell and broke the hip and the femur with a spiral fracture around the prosthetic knee. It was awful. The problem? Short staffed according to the grid. Of course the hospital ended up paying for her next surgery and SNF stay afterwards. She was not confused but was "dreaming the place was on fire!" The family intended to sue.

When the amount of money shelled out for lawsuits outweigh the profits then and only then will we see improved staffing on hospital units. It always boils down to profit.

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