ICU Nurse-to-Patient Ratio Reporting

Nantucket Cottage Hospital is a 19-bed rural hospital which does not have a dedicated Intensive Care Unit (ICU) but has one licensed ICU bed which is called “Special Care Unit” (SCU) bed. Patients placed in the SCU bed are staffed on a 1:2 or 1:1 registered nurse-to-patient ratio. Any patient requiring intensive care unit level of care, for example airway intubation and mechanical ventilation or vasoactive drug infusions, are cared for in the emergency department prior to transport to Massachusetts General Hospital or other tertiary medical centers by MedFlight.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) now requires all Massachusetts ICUs to report quarterly Registered Nurse-to-Patient ratios on their websites. Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s ICU ratios are as follows:

*No patients in SCU bed for the 2017 calendar year