What is your nurse to pt ratio....and how many is too many?

NJNursing, ASN, RN · Mar 7, 2007

Wow, a lot of y'all have it very lucky. I work nights on a 32 bed Ortho/Med-surg floor. We only have to be staffed a minimum of 4 overnight and we're thrilled if we have 5. We try to spread out the post-ops, especially if they're bilateral anythings. When we have 4 nurses we're 8:1 and if we have a hallway bed, sometimes 9:1 and two PCT's, sometimes 3, but it's rare. No unit secretary after 11pm and rapid admit for the ER holds stops around 9:30-10pm, so we have to do our own admissions, care plans, goals/outcomes, initial assessments, etc. With our computerized charting it takes about 15 minutes to fully chart on one patient and if we've got 8, 2 hours of our shift is solely charting and that's if it's just basics and not if they have a bunch of wounds that have to be documented on or other issues going on. Meds all around the clock, sometimes neuro checks, PCA's, wound care, dressing changes - it's overwhelming to tell you the truth. We've gone to our director and she has said that we're only slated to have 5 RN's by day, 4 at night. We're moving to a new wing next month and we'll still have 32 beds but we'll be ortho/neuro and she said the staffing is going to remain the same. Many of us are concerned about taking step-down strokes with the orth patients and possible med-surg overflow still at a ratio of 8:1 at night.