RD Staffing in Acute Care Hospitals

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Phillips, W. (2015). Clinical nutrition staffing benchmarks for acute care hospitals. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115(7), 1054-1056.

            The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has established a staffing ratio of RDNs to patients in a clinical setting.  For a medical/surgical acute care floor the ratio is one dietitian for every 65 to 75 patients; for an intensive care unit the ratio is 1:30 to 1:60. Because there has not been a universally accepted number of RDNs based on average daily census, it is challenging for nutrition managers to determine whether their staff is meeting productivity goals.  It’s important to analyze the workload assigned to dietitians in the clinical setting in order to establish benchmarks. 
            Baseline data was collected using a standardized productivity monitoring tool from 420 hospitals contracted with Morrison healthcare over an 11-month period. The clinical nutrition manager (CNM) at each hospital sent one summary form per hospital to the researchers at the end of each month.  The summary included data on all of the direct care and indirect care activities done by each RDN.  The researchers received a total of 1,311 summary reports.  These reports showed that RDNs saw on average 2.42 patients per hour in direct patient care activities.  The average time spent on each patient was 25 minutes totaling to an average of 15 patients seen per an 8-hour work day per RDN. Furthermore, RDNs spent 77% of their time on direct care activities and 23% on indirect care activities. 

-AC


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