What does it mean when patient census is decreased?

Sour Lemon · Dec 14, 2016

There are fewer patients and they need less staffing. That's pretty common over the winter holidays.

nutella, MSN, RN · Dec 14, 2016

I was checking the status of my application for patient care tech at a rehab hospital and they told me the patient census decreased so they had to un post the position, however it will be back up in January...is that a good or bad thing? i want the job soooooo bad!!

It means that they are less busy = need less staff, which is "normal" during holidays and often from thanksgiving through new years for some settings. However, it could also point towards a general trend that this specific facility is less "popular" and is downsizing. If you happen to apply again and get asked to come in for an interview I would ask how their census fluctuates, and try to get an idea how they deal with the fluctuation in census.

I once got hired by a place as a supervisor that had a "low census" when I started. Guess what - I was told at that time that this was the "normal" fluctuation and that they closed 50% of beds for a while. I was somewhat suspicious. After some weeks of working there I had the feeling that there was no intention of getting the census back up and asked the manager about longterm strategies and straight out if they were going to close. Of course she said "no" and "that would never happen".

But - I saw the writing on the wall and proceeded to apply for a different job and left.

Guess what - 2 months later I got a call from one of the people working there telling me that I was right when I had voiced concerns over the constant low census and not replacing staff - they had been told that the facility would close in few weeks with starting to decrease census and not taking new patients immediately. Granted, they offered staff to transfer to other facilities but the distance was too much for some.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Dec 14, 2016

Census is a term that refers to the number of patients on a unit or floor of a hospital or other type of healthcare facility.

If census is high, a full staff of workers is needed to care for the patients. On the other hand, less employees are needed if census is low due to less patients on the floor or unit.