What is your staffing like?

Staffing is tight in house I hear. we have not had too many problems with the ER. We are usually staffed appropriately.......butt still have many dinnerless nights.

Rick

I work in a cardiac, med/surg ICU (non-interventional; no open hearts) where our staffing is SUPPOSED to be 1:2 but it is always 1:3, sometimes 1:4. And we just had an "emergency meeting" this morning because 2 more fulltimers quit and we are now in a "staffing crisis" in the ICU. Vice President attended meeting to tell us she was in our corner, yada yada yada....but what it all comes down to is we will be verbally bullwhipped if we don't pick up extra shifts.

They are 'working on' getting us extra pay or bonus for extra shifts but there is nothing online yet. They are 'working on' telling physicians that only patients that actually meet ICU criteria can be admitted (you'd be amazed at what we get--physicians actually will say they admitted pt. to ICU for "better nursing care" as opposed to ICU need). But you know how it goes...when the physician or ER doc says "Admit to ICU" wham bam down the hall it comes, regardless of our "NOT SAFE, NOT SAFE!" cries. And did you say "diversion"?! That word is banned in our hospital. We just stack 'em up.

L & D in Phoenix...

We always live on the edge, especially on nights. Trying to maintain 2 labor per license.

Average night our unit can deliver 20 babies, see 30 in triage, 2 - 4 c/sections and run the trans nsy...Not to mention the ante-partum pt's average number is 10 - 14 on our unit.

Average license count is 22. Now isn't that proof that there is more of them (pts) than us!!!!! Simple math right (did we really need algebra and stats??)

Until I took a contract at the VA hospital, I would have echoed the sentiments above. But no more! The unit I work on doesn't fulfill the adrenalin junkie in me, but it does fill my desire to give quality patient care! I never miss lunch, and most of the time, I don't miss breaks either. I work with a good group of people, and the unit has a family feel to it. Yes, there are still stressors, when people call in, and we can't get help. And most of the people who work there are travelers also. And we just lost our unit manager, who was excellent, but went on to greener pastures. The work is difficult, as we have several total care pts.. But they don't allow OT for Travelers, so I don't have to worrry about feeling guilty about filling in on my days off. There are several travelers on the unit, who have resigned contracts for the 3rd, and 4th time.

You can get into a rut here. But when you look around, and see just what is out there, I'll take boredom, and safe staffing...at least for now!

Brownie

Used to be bad at the hospital I worked in about 2 years ago (see L&D RN's post...veeeeeeeeeeeery similar situation). Left that hospital. Currently, I can expect to have one patient in labor on a good night, 2 on a bad night. 3-4 on a H*** night. The good nights and the bad nights are about 50/50 as far as frequency of occurance. The H*** nights only happen during a full moon and extreme barometric pressure changes :). I have it pretty good, to be quite honest.