staffing levels

[John Tracy]

I am trying to gather information for my DON.  I would like to pose a couple of questions to the group.  But first, let me explain my dilemma:   We are a county facility.  We have 3 floors of SNF residents, 40 each.  We have a dementia unit that is 28 beds and a short-term, sub-acute rehab unit that holds 12 residents.   Currently our staffing levels are slated for this:   7-3:   6 aides per unit on SNF, 4 aides on the dementia unit, 2 aides on short-term rehab   3-11: 4 aides on the SNF units 3 aides on the dementia unit 2 aides on the short-term rehab unit   11-7: 2 aides on all of the units except short term rehab with one.   Now that you understand the makeup of the facility, let me give you some background.   We were about 2.2 million in the red last year.  The cutting of IGT money hurt our facility badly.  As a result, we used all of our capital reserves for payroll and all of our other expenses.  So now, we need to cut.  We already cut our budget for all non-essential supplies and conferences, etc.  But now they are talking about cutting staff.  Our administrator states that we are way above what the national average is for staffing numbers.   The proposition for staffing is:   Cutting down the day aides by two and adding a 9-1 aide, cutting down to 3 aides on evenings and adding a 5-9 aide and cutting down the short term aides to 1.   I am wondering what your staffing is like in your buildings with the aides and nurses?  The nurses staff like this:   Days: 2 plus nurse manager on days except short term has one plus nurse manager.  Eves is one and two treatment nurses in the building to do all units from 5-9 pm and one nurse on 11-7 per floor.    I appreciate any feedback.   Michelle