Those in Med Surg

Nurses General Nursing

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What is your nurse patient ratio? With or without techs?

Night shift: usually 5-6 patients per nurse and 2-3 techs for a floor with at most 33 patients.

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4:1 with 3-4 techs on a 36 bed unit.

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Specializes in ICU.

Ours is 1-8 (days, afternoons) usually with a tech, although one of these pts might be a total care pt (nurse will do all vitals, cbg, bathing, etc). It's rough!

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On days: up to 4 without a tech (but this never happens), usually 3-4 with 1-2 techs on the floor. On nights 4-5 patients per nurse with usually just one tech (occasionally two). If we don't have any tech at all, we don't go above 4 pts per nurse on nights.

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Specializes in MS, ED.

34 bed unit: days are 6:1 with 2-4 techs on the floor dependent on census. Nights: 8:1 or more, if the ER explodes, with two techs sharing the floor. :eek:

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Specializes in floor to ICU.
7:1 with or without a tech.

God Bless Y'all, Med Surg nurses! :heartbeat This is the primary reason I moved to critical care. Practically impossible to do proper care at a 7:1 ratio!

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Specializes in Mother Baby & pre-hospital EMS.
what is a tech?

In the nursing world, a tech is a shortened term for PCT (patient care technician) or nurse tech. Other names you might see are CNAs (certified nursing assistants) and PCAs (patient care assistants) - they all generally have similar duties. They help out with basic care for the patients (vitals, baths, linens, ambulating, toileting, feeding, etc. - which nurses can do as well).

At my former job, our ratio was usually 5:1. If we had a good amount of staff, a few nurses might get 4:1. We tried to avoid the ratio of 6:1 once we moved to our new floor, but sometimes it happened. We did have techs (we called them PCAs).

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Specializes in acute care med/surg, LTC, orthopedics.
what is a tech?

Orderly/HCA/PSW

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Specializes in Med/Surg.
God Bless Y'all, Med Surg nurses! :heartbeat This is the primary reason I moved to critical care. Practically impossible to do proper care at a 7:1 ratio!

I would desperately like to get away from med/surg. 7 patients is definitely too many. I can usually handle six but seven is just that magic number that ruins everything. It *is* impossible to give proper care with seven pts. I hate it. I'm sitting here practically salivating over the thought of only having to care for 4-5 pts. like these other nurses. :o

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7-8:1 with one tech. It's unsafe to have such a large load! I am beginning to think my days in this hospital are limited!

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Home Health.

Just got hired as a night shift nurse 7pto 7a for a med surge floor. The nurse manager stated I would have 5 patient ratio because she recently had alot of nurses quit because the patient ratio had been higher and she stated more than once I would never have over 5 patients. Hope she holds true to this. I am leaving LTC nursing after 8 years. That is all the experience that I have so I know it will be a tough transition but need the experience for down the road!

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Specializes in LTC, med/surg, hospice.

Nights..we are staffed by a grid.

Generally it's 5:1 with or without a tech. Of course we prefer to have at least 1 and we will have 2 if we are LUCKY!

With the colder season here and our census going up I expect it to be 6:1 more often.

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