Well...first of all, I need to tell that I am doing the research about the Registered Nurse to Patient Ratio for each department in the hospitals in the US. And it's necessary to refer to the hospitals in the US since I think the hospital system there is standardized and can be used as a good source of reference.
I tried searching before but found many about the theory, the abstract, the blah blah blah but no exact number of the required ratio I'm looking for.
That's why I need to ask you guys a favor on this. Please share the Registered Nurse to Patient Ratio. You may tell your department and the ratio. Telling your hospital name too would be excellent but I understand if some of you find it uncomfortable. You can even PM me or leave me a message to PM you for your privacy.
I can guarantee I won't take the information I get to do anything else but for my project only. I'm from a country in South East Asia and just need the reliable data.
Med Surg here, night shift. 6-7 patients with it never being more than 7. Sometimes it goes as low as 5 patients but that's unusual. No, we do not have a union and this is in a medium size Arkansas city.
For OP, I think it's important to know that these numbers are not standardized across the country. Most states do not have any law related to staffing ratios.
Not all ratios are created equal, either. Tech-to-patient ratios affect the workload that a nurse will have with the exact same number and type of patients.
I've had more than 30 patients on night shift in LTC/subacute rehab. Never more than 7 in LTACH or med-surg. My usual LTACH load was 4-5 including trached/vented. On med-surg with most patients low acuity and up ad lib, they it was usually 4-5 with no tech, but if census went up there wasn't extra staff to call in. My most recent unit was ortho, just after the hospital lost nurses in droves due to a short-lived attempt to up the inpatient ratio (on all their med-surg units) from 1:5 to 1:6. I never had more than 5 patients at once there, but it was a fast admission/discharge rate so I'd often be charting on 7-8 patients in a shift.
Pediatric hospital. There isn't an official "rule" about ratios here. But in the ICUs it is 1:1 or 1:2....2:1 for ECMO.
Step down/intermediate cardiac ICU is also 1:2. One time I had 1:3 for about 4 hours while waiting for two of those patients to get beds on the floor after having transfer orders.
Telemetry is 1:3 normally, rarely they might have 4.
Can't speak to the other floors, since I don't work on them.
I'm in an urban hospital in the Midwest. I work ICU, and we are generally 2:1, sometimes 1:1 and occasionally 1:2 (that's patient:nurse ) Stepdown units are 3:1, and I think the general floors are 5-7:1.
Some of these make me laugh, and not in a good way. In the hospital I worked at, med surge was 8:1, er was 7:1, and sometimes at night the er nurses, I kid u not, had 12 patients, and they WOULD NOT hire more nurses for night shift. Also, when I was freshly off orientation as a new RN on med surg I was given 10 patients and told they'd help me when I needed it. They didn't.
ED we generally staff 1:3/1:4 occasionally it'll end up at 1:5 if it's terrible. Although the triage nurse can sometimes be 1:30+, If acuity dictates we'll sometimes go 1:1 or 2:1.
meanmaryjean, DNP, RN
7,899 Posts
Pediatric ICU 1:1 or 1:2 (ECMO patients are 2:1)