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).
Type of Hospital: (community or tertiary) community
Type of Unit: (e.g., surgical telemetry, cardiac telemetry, medical tele, post-cath, etc.)all of the above -- iif t happens here (surgical, cardiac, med/surg, post cath, DTs, acute MI, acute CVA), we catch it
Number of beds:36
Number of patients each RN has:on a good night, 4. on a bad night, 7, most nights, 6, depends on how many of us make it in -- we're on a freakin' death march right now, with nurses getting written up because they won't accept 8 pts -- I flat out told the ER head she could write me up, and I'd be on the phone to the state BON as soon as I got home. She hasn't written me up...yet. Bullies don't like getting called out.
Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: we get 1 aid for each 8 pts. when we're lucky and they show up. usually, it's a full house, each nurse has 6-8 pts, and we may have 1-2 CNAs. We've had nights where we had 32 pts, and 28 of them were total cares, q2h turns. God that night sucked eggs.....
Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y:we have 1, and she's also telemetry qualified to watch the monitors while she's stuffing charts, putting in non med orders, and doing admissions. We (nurses) have to put in all med orders, do chart checks to make sure all "c'd" off orders have actually been done or are in the computer to be done, surgical checklists for next morning procedures, etc. Oh, and we get to check the temp of the pt refridgerator, too...
And we're night shift, day shift ratios are: nurses, no more than 4 pts per nurse, , 2 secretaries, and 3-4 aids. I guess people spontaneously get better when the sun comes up...
4 pts on a good night, 7 on a bad night, usually 6. We draw the line at 8 because it's not safe for the kind of high acuity "ought to be in the ICU but the ICU's full" kinda pts we get....
I'm an aide at a community hospital, working a cardiac tele/post-cath unit. We get a lot of open heart patients and cath-labs. The unit is split into East and West, and only West side gets cath-lab patients that have lines.
On my unit (west) the nurses have four patients each. There are 19 beds. When we have four nurses working we have two aids, and usually 3 aids if there are five nurses. We sometimes share patients with east side amongst the aids. CNAs are supposed to have a max of 8 patients each, but sometimes it's 9 or 10 on a bad day.
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)Tertiary
Type of Unit: (e.g., surgical telemetry, cardiac telemetry, medical tele, post-cath, etc.)Cardiac, post CABG day 1, EP, post PCI, Pre CABG, NSTEMI
Number of beds:36
Number of patients each RN has:DAYS 4:1 (5:1 if we are short or on the weekend) EVES 5:1 or 6:1 Nights up to 7:1 for one nurse and 6:1 for others
Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide:2_4 LNA's Based on acuity
Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y:2 secy on days 2 on eves none on nights 1 on weekends on both shifts (LNA's are crosstrained to help)
1 -2 Tele tech's we monitor tele for up to 56 patients all offsite tele is monitored off site by RN and in my unit by monitor Tech.
WE down staff Nurses at when there is enough for 4 admits and we will not go over ratio- so one assingment flex
BUT we are almost never not full I have worked there 2 years and been called off 1 shift for census.
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.
Wow!!!!!!!!!!! You have 3 or 4 techs/aides for 24 patients?!?!?!?!!!!!
I work on a stepdown unit that takes anything cardiac related. Med. Surg. And the favorite....>ETOH.
We have 22 rooms/beds and we are ALWAYS full, never in the year and a half I've been there has anyone been sent home due to low census.
Ratio is, when staffed, 3:1, when short 4:1, charge will take patients when super short. We are lucky if we have two techs on the floor. 3-4 techs would be an absolute DREAM.
We've been trying to convince management since I started that we need more techs on days.
Number of patients each RN has: 5 (6 if we're down a nurse)
Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: 2-3 aides per shift
Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: 2 unit secretaries, 2 charges (one without patients, one with three patients)
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!
1:4 !!! That's excellent--in my cardiac hospital we have to work 8:1 cardiac monitored patients and we have no monitor techs--the nurse is the one who has to watch the monitors as well as do the patient care--we get no LPNs to work with us--we get nurse extenders to help and they draw blood and do sugar sticks--that's it! when I get off work in the am, I am literally exhausted to the point where I can't even stand straight on my feet. Having a ratio of 4:1 sounds like a dream to me.
PS--I am also a new nurse--I have worked there only 2.5 months and because of this experience, I am starting to not only hate my job, but to hate nursing as well.
Type of Unit: cardiac telemetry, occasional surgical tele overflow from another unit.
Number of beds:25 telemetry - divided into 2 wings (12 pts and 13pts per wing) and 6 PCU beds
Number of patients each RN has:usually 4 pts per RN except one nurse gets 5 patients since we have 25 beds. We try to rotate who gets the 5th patient. For PCU the ratio is 3 pts per RN.
Do you have a nurse's aides and/or at what census level do you downstaff an aide: We have 1 aide for each wing plus PCU. So the wing aides get 12-13 pts each. PCU aide gets 6 pts. Very rarely do we downstaff but a lot of times our aides get pulled for 1:1 observation or we are short an aide.
Do you have a unit secretary and/or at what census level do you downstaff the sec'y: yes, never downstaffed.
You have 3 or 4 techs/aides for 24 patients?!?!?!?!!!!!
studentgrl
13 Posts
sorry double post --