ALL About Staffing - HCA hospitals

LadyNASDAQ · Apr 27, 2007

I have been working for HCA for many years. They can be hard hospitals to work for but I still feel that pay is good if you are a person that is loyal to them. I am working a local agency contract with premium pay.

NURSJADED · Apr 28, 2007

I have been working for HCA for many years. They can be hard hospitals to work for but I still feel that pay is good if you are a person that is loyal to them. I am working a local agency contract with premium pay.

I've worked for HCA for 10 years. The pay is good regardless of how loyal you are to them. They pay based on years experience. Just know that 90% of the time you will work short-staffed. 30% of that 90%... will be REALLY short-staffed! I'm almost done with my LPN to RN program and then I will never, never, work in another HCA facility.

LadyNASDAQ · Apr 28, 2007

The problem here is that my pay is in the 40's per hr. That proves to be a problem saying that I would NEVER work for them again. Meanwhile it has been a long 14 years of service approximately or so and my bank account and investments say something to the contrary along with my ability to negotiate a better work assignment along with 28 years of expertise. I believe that you have to be a good member of the team regardless of it being HCA,Sutter,Kaiser or whomever you are working for. All these companies are short staffed coast to coast. Even with a mandate in place, you will still see a shortage even if it's with not as many Relief Nurses as anticipated.

michnurse12 · Apr 28, 2007

Have any of you worked or heard of the working conditions at the port st lucie, ft pierce or wet palm beach hospitals? Thanks

NURSJADED · Apr 29, 2007

The problem here is that my pay is in the 40's per hr. That proves to be a problem saying that I would NEVER work for them again. Meanwhile it has been a long 14 years of service approximately or so and my bank account and investments say something to the contrary along with my ability to negotiate a better work assignment along with 28 years of expertise. I believe that you have to be a good member of the team regardless of it being HCA,Sutter,Kaiser or whomever you are working for. All these companies are short staffed coast to coast. Even with a mandate in place, you will still see a shortage even if it's with not as many Relief Nurses as anticipated.

All the "good members" are leaving, including myself. Three patients a piece in ICU (Vents, gtts, swans.. doesn't matter to them) no aides, no secretaries, no monitor techs. You can only do so much.

LadyNASDAQ · Apr 30, 2007

This is the trend that most ICU's are facing if they aren't mandated.

NURSJADED · Apr 30, 2007

This is the trend that most ICU's are facing if they aren't mandated.

We did just vote the union in this year. Of course, negotiations are not going well and there is talk of a one-day strike. I'm sure it will be a long time before there are any improvements in patient-staff ratios.

NURSJADED · Apr 30, 2007

Have any of you worked or heard of the working conditions at the port st lucie, ft pierce or wet palm beach hospitals? Thanks

No, but it is a great area! I have family over in Port St Lucie, but none of them are medical personnel so I don't know how the hospital systems are. Its a strange area in that there are a lot of migrant farm workers and a lot of newly rich folks. Makes for some great diversity (and good restaurants!)

NurseguyFL · May 3, 2007

I don't know about St. Lucie or Fort Pierce, but I have worked in a few of the Palm Beach County hospitals that are owned by HCA and they are pretty much the same. LadyNasdaq is right, you can make decent money working for HCA, but just don't go in there thinking its going to be 'fun'. You will work very hard for that money, especially if you are in the unit---often with no support at all! And if you complain too much they will cancel your contract---especially if there is a completion bonus at the end of it. I personally don't care very much for HCA's corporate philosophy because I've found that they don't really care about their nurses or good quality patient care. To be fair, there are some days when working for them is ok, but much of the time its a nightmare.

A three-patient ICU assignment in the Tri County area of south Florida is actually a trend now. I have found that its not only the HCA hospitals that are doing it. Some of these hospitals will push the limits of safety and ethics, and they don't have to care if something bad happens during an unsafe patient assignment because they can legally put all of the blame on you. Remember that no matter what, the BON is always going to say that it was YOUR responsibility to refuse the assignment if your professional judgment told you it was unsafe. Its not going to be easy to argue yourself out of that position (unless you have a REALLY good attorney) because they will say that you are a professional and that you should have used better judgment.

You just have to weigh the pros and the cons, and if you feel that the circumstances are too unsafe for you then DON'T DO IT! If you have a difficulty making the determination, consider how hard you had to work to get your license, and then consider whether the assignment is really worth losing it for.

NURSJADED · May 8, 2007

Some of these hospitals will push the limits of safety and ethics, and they don't have to care if something bad happens during an unsafe patient assignment because they can legally put all of the blame on you.

At our facility the union has provided an "unsafe staffing" form that we fill out if we feel the staffing is unsafe for any reason. We list the reason why, give a copy to our Sup. and retain a copy for ourselves. No, its not fail-safe, but at least it shows that we tried to avoid the problem and notified our supervisor in advance and they did nothing about it.