Telemetry Staffing Ratios

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Specializes in Hospice, Critical Care.

I'm trying to gather information on telemetry unit staffing ratios, including ancillary help. It would be of tremendous help to me (as a manager trying to get a better ratio) if you could answer the following:

Type of Hospital: (community or tertiary)

Type of Unit: (e.g., surgical telemetry, cardiac telemetry, medical tele, post-cath, etc.)

Number of beds:

Number of patients each RN has:

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide:

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y:

Any information like this is helpful....I'll answer mine:

Type of hospital: Community

Type of Unit: surgical telemetry

Number of beds: we flex from 16 to 32 (16 always open; flex up during high census)

Number of patients per RN: 5 or 6

Nurse Aide: All shifts when census at 100%; downstaff @ 70% capacity

Secretary: 4 hours per day when census is >18 patients (which means ONLY when I have both sides of my unit open--we usually only have 16 beds open--so basically, no unit secretary).

Thanks!

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Specializes in Cardiac, NICU, ED.

I am an RN at a regional medical center. I work cardiac telemetry, but will get medical and surgical tele patients as well. Particularly, since most other floors do not monitor heart rhythm.

As an RN I take 4 patients on my own or up to eight with an LPN. When working with an LPN, I am responsible for all assessments, phoning the doctors, hanging blood, giving IV push, and noting orders. The LPN basically administers the medications.

Our unit is cardiac telemetry at one end, usually 38 beds and then there are 14 stepdown beds at the other end. Our nurses rotate working both ends. With the 27 two-bed rooms we will have 2 nurse aides at the most. Usually one for the stepdown end and one for the cardiac end. If census drops beyond 20 or so patients then one aide will usually go home. The aides mostly only do accuchecks and ADLs. We are responsible to obtain our own vital signs. Our unit will usually have 3 unit clerks, two for cardiac and one for stepdown on the weekdays. On the weekend we usually have only one or two working. Since I have yet to train in as charge nurse, I do not know how the staffing actually works.

We also work 8 hour shifts in case that makes any differerence to you.

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community hospital in California

general telemetry(we get open hearts after CCU, Cornary and Carotid Stents, CHF, CVA, Arrhythmmias, MI's after ccu, r/o MIs, syncopes, anyone who has a heart hx that needs monitoring such as a fx hip who needs an ORIF and they want to watch for 24hours,

We are one unit but physically on 2 floors for a total of 52 beds.

California ratios mandate no more than 4 pt per nurse. We have aides aprox one for every 6-8 patients, occasionally fewer aids if we can't get enough.

We have a secretary on both floors almost every day and evening shift, none for nights, and a monitor tech on the one floor who watches all monitors on every shift.

One charge on each floor.,

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Specializes in Cardiac, NICU, ED.

One more thing, as RNs were are responsible for the telemetry monitoring. There is no central monitoring station or employee paid to sit an watch the monitors.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

36 bed cardiac interventional/pumonary unit.

Charge nurse who is not required to take pt. assignment.

4:1 patient/nurse ratio, mostly RNs but a few LPNs.

3-4 CNAs who split the census equally among themselves.

1 Ward Clerk

1 Monitor Tech

We need more CNAs. I like the idea of assigning one CNA to 2 nurses, rather than having the aides all split up the unit.

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Type of Hospital: Community

Type of Unit: Cardiac telemetry, post-caths, pacers, etc.

Number of beds: 12

Number of patients each RN has: 1:4

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: We have one aide for 12 beds. They are sent home if our census drops below 5.

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: YES! I love our UCA's! They go home if we drop to 5 patients.

I'm in Ohio and love my community hospital!

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

Type of Hospital: Community

Type of Unit: CVPCU/NeuroTele/CCU/PCU

Number of beds:

Neuro: 40

CVPCU: 16

PCU: 28

CCU: 24

Number of patients each has:

Neurotele-1:5/1:6

CVPCU-1:3/1:4

PCU- 1:4/1:5

CCU- 1:2/1:3

(Above numbers are the same RN or LPN)

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide:

I generally work med-surg so not sure, but the posted variances are the avg. Aides are generally 1:10-1:15

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y

Always have a secretary except at night time we share one or two for all units.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Type of Hospital: Community soon to be Regional

Type of Unit: IMU (Intermediate Care Unit)

Number of beds: 12 (will be 24-30 in new facility)

Number of patients each RN has: 3

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: 1 aide, downstaff at 8 or less

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: 1 US, no downstaffing. Occasionally may need to cover IMU and ICU depending on staffing.

Edit: All 40+ of our med/surg beds can be tele at any point, their ratio is 4:1 with 8:1 aides on a good day.

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Specializes in ICU, CCU, Trauma, neuro, Geriatrics.

Travel RN, on 3rd contract with this awesome facility in Maryland.

Type of Hospital: Community

Type of Unit: med/surg/cardiac telemetry

Number of beds: 24

Number of patients each RN has: 1:3 or 1:4 only 3 patients if you have a ventilator patient.

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: daylight 3 or 4 nurse aids, nights 2. I think we downstaff at around 14 patients.

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: unit secretary on daylight and evening, share one secretary with the rest of the facility for nights.

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Specializes in Oncology, radiology, ICU.

Type of Hospital: Community

Type of Unit: Cardiac telemetry/ICU stepdown/medical overflow

Number of beds:33

Number of patients each RN has:4-5 but as many as 6 if deemed neccessary

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: days usually has 1 aide that works 12 hours and a second aide that works 8. Nights has one aide occassionally 2. I'm not sure when we downstaff aides since it never seems like we have enough as ours always call off.

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: days has a monitor tech and secretary. Nights has one person that acts as both monitor tech and secretary. We have someone watching the monitors at all times.

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Type of hospital: Community

Type of Unit: med-surg telemetry (usually about 1/2 are tele)

Number of beds: 30 bed max with one nursing station on each of two sides of floor--each of the two nursing stations having three computers at the desk and an extra to the side. Floor standard rectangular about 50' x 250'

Number of patients per RN: 5 or 6, just to keep the M.D.'s guessing which side their patients' charts are on. (Better than the 8-12 pts where I used to work.)

Nurse Aide: All shifts when census at 100%; downstaff @ about 70% capacity, which can make it tough when you have totals. One aide each side takes 15 pts. If no aide on one side then nurses on that side are on their own as the aides won't cross the "line" that separates the two wings of the floor, even if the aide only has 7-8 pts on that side. Sometimes a nurse acts as an aide if the census is high enough but an aide has called in or otherwise unavailable.

Secretary: none--zip--we nurses enter our own orders, but we try to help each other, and the day charge nurse who does not take pts also assistsa when able

The charge is an RN, of course, and at least one RN per the two sides. Otherwise LPNs.

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Type of Hospital: community

Type of Unit: medical tele which includes post cath and post surgerys

Number of beds: 39

Number of patients each RN has: nomally 6-7 on my night shift but up to 8 i have had (im a new grad too!)

Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: we have 1-2 cnas during night

Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: unit secretary goes home at 11pm

All i have to say is i wish i live in california where staffing ratio is low. my typical night consists of no breaks and scaring down a granola bar while im charting. im on my second week of orientation and its scary, my manager refused to give me more time on orientation (9 wks of orientation on the floor). but i knew i would learn as i go by asking questions and getting support from my staff .

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