When you stay in the hospital you are under constant care. Nowhere is this truer than in the Intensive Care Unit
where care is provided to our most fragile patients—after certain major surgeries, when suffering from pneumonia
or congestive heart failure, or after a major trauma.

In the ICU, each nurse is assigned to only two patients so she can carefully and regularly monitor changes in
vital signs and responses to medications. Technology helps, of course, but responding to the signals picked up
by the scanners and monitors is still a human function in the hands of highly skilled nurses.

In other parts of the hospital, nurses may care for between four to six less critical patients. Whatever the
right ratio for the severity of the patient’s condition, having enough qualified nurses is critical to the safety
of our patients. It’s been shown in studies across the country that when there are too few nurses for the
number of patients in hospitals, adverse outcomes can occur.

Beebe Medical Center is fortunate to have a School of Nursing to educate new nurses each year. Help us ensure
more nurses are available by supporting the Nursing Education Campaign today.