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If 17 patients on a ward need 4 hour individual care in any 24 hour period. How many nurses are required per 24 hours on a ward? Nurses shifts are 12 hour long

 Oct 3, 2014

Best Answer 

 #1
avatar+3453 
+5

This is an interesting question.

It says that each patient needs individual care. So this means one nurse can't care for multiple patients.

Let's first find out how many patients a nurse can care for on their shift.

If they work for 12 hours, and each patient needs 4 hours of care, that they can care for 12/4, or 3 patients on their shift.

 

I'm thinking you can't have a nurse work back-to-back shifts and thus care for 6 patients in a 24 hour period. If you could do this you would get a different answer.

 

Anyway, if one nurse can care for 3 patients and there are 17 patients, that means that 17/3 tells us how many nurses we need.

 

$$\frac{17}{3} = 5\frac{2}{3}$$

 

Of course, you can't have a 2/3 ofa  nurse, so you would round up and need 6 nurses.

 Oct 3, 2014
 #1
avatar+3453 
+5
Best Answer

This is an interesting question.

It says that each patient needs individual care. So this means one nurse can't care for multiple patients.

Let's first find out how many patients a nurse can care for on their shift.

If they work for 12 hours, and each patient needs 4 hours of care, that they can care for 12/4, or 3 patients on their shift.

 

I'm thinking you can't have a nurse work back-to-back shifts and thus care for 6 patients in a 24 hour period. If you could do this you would get a different answer.

 

Anyway, if one nurse can care for 3 patients and there are 17 patients, that means that 17/3 tells us how many nurses we need.

 

$$\frac{17}{3} = 5\frac{2}{3}$$

 

Of course, you can't have a 2/3 ofa  nurse, so you would round up and need 6 nurses.

NinjaDevo Oct 3, 2014

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