What's your ratio

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I currently work on a 40 bed tele unit. Since I live in San Antonio, alot of doctors transfer their patients from the southern part of Texas to our hospital. In part I think because we have more technology to offer, but also because more than a few doctors have stated they preferred having their patients on our floor rather than anywhere else (unless the patient should be in ICU). Needless to say we have very sick heavy patients on our floor. Our floor is very busy, but the safest in the hospital(in my opinion). Our ratio used to be 4:1 days, 5:1 nights with about 2 aides days and nights. Initially we were told under extreme circumstances we could stretch to +1 days and nights. We fought it believing that sooner or later it would become the standard and told we could stretch even farther. Sure enough after 2 wks of 6:1 nights I was told we would go to 7:1. We threatened safe harbor and they backed down. Even at 6:1 Im seeing seasoned nurses making amatuer but potentially distatorous mistakes. With all our seasoned nurses leaving Im worried the 4 new grads hired at nights will allow management to go 7:1.

So as my question states, what is everyone else s ratio. Our sister hospital does 7:1 tele, but transfer their difficult patients to us.

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Specializes in Cardiac.

Our ration is 4:1 days and 5:1 nights. Some nights even 5 is barely doable, I couldn't imagine 7! Our pt's seem to be getting sicker and sicker everyday and more docs are sending their pts to us too. Alot of our seasoned nurse are leaving too and we many many new grads,especially on nights. I think you nurses should stand up for one another. 5-6-7 patients is crazy!

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Specializes in Cardiac step-down, PICC/Midline insertion.

I don't care what's going on with the patient, if they are a cardiac patient on telemetry....nothing more than 4:1 is accpetable EVER in my opinion. They're on tele for a reason....they need to have their rhythm watched. You can't tend to 7 patients and keep track of what's going on with the rhythm unless you have a monitor tech. You can't really adequately take care of 5-6-7 patients anyway. I am typically busy with 3 or 4. I work at a specialized heart hospital and in the PCCU we are not allowed to have more than 4 day or night. It's considered a "step-down" unit. We have no unit clerk and no monitor techs and assessments must be charted q6h instead of once a shift, so 4 patients is plenty! We also have to do strip interp. twice a shift as well. If your unit is also that way and they want you to take on 6-7 patients, I would be looking for another job. That is just careless and unsafe.

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Usually 6:1 on days with techs/assts and monitor techs. Turnover being what it is, it can easily change to 7:1 or 4:1 or even less on a dime. Max is 8:1 which seems to be pretty rare. It happens but not often. 6:1 or higher doesn't feel very safe to me. It feels like complete chaos most of the time. Needless to say, 12 hours passes VERY quickly.

BartC

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I could not imagine working with 7 patients, what do you do when they all complain of chest Pain ??? the hospital I work in has a 4:1 ratio, days and nights, and 1 to 2 Nursing assistants, but that changes depending on the number of patients, if there are only 10 patients, then there is only one NA.

Our floor is completely chaotic at most times. And with this chaos, comes short tempers, so I'm sure, if the ratio went from 4 to 7, WOW, everyone would be biting each others' heads off :)

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Specializes in Telemetry.

Wow, my hospital is 4:1 days and nights for tele. There is always a monitor tech and PCTs. It's scary to think of anything else, I don't know how I'd provide good care to even more patients, at least with the acuities we get.

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Specializes in Cardiac.

I recently worked at a different hospital. in the float pool. The ratio on all of the cardiac floors besided HVICU was 6:1 with maybe one CMT if you were lucky.

I now work at a different hospital and the ratio is still maybe 5-6:1 but there are 2-3 aides on the floor along with a unit secretary/tele tech. So its better but I would love to have a smaller ratio.

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Specializes in MED-SURG,CARDIO/PULM, Home Health.

i currently work on a tele floor @ nights and our ratio is 6:1, we do have monitor techs, but majority of the time no cna's, so that leaves us with total pt care @ x's. we get all the chest pain & stroke pt's from er & surrounding small hospitals. i've been thinking of looking for another job because i've been hearing that soon we will be only going to 1 cna @ night & only 3 nurses on a 23 bed unit because they seem to think that the night shift doesn't do as much as day shift! yea right!!!

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