Any insight on Centura?

ibslb · Jun 22, 2011

When I started working at a Centura hospital in Colorado as a float pool RN in 2007, I was a traveler and decided to sign on because I loved the nursing staff and the total environment was supportive, friendly and like a family. Now I'm looking to travel again because the opposite has happened. When the economy took a nosedive last year, the administrators hired new managers and they are micro-managing the nursing staff like crazy. 12, yes 12 ER nurses have actually quit, no lie, and many of the floor nurses, i.e. med-surg, tele, PCU/ICU, have left or anticipate leaving very soon. It's the first thing people talk about when you get to work as many RN's are so anxious about feeling that they have no choice but to get out before they're let go for any slight whatsoever. As an example, an RN who's worked there many years and is well qualified had not taken a break all day and finally took a pack of 2 crackers in the kitchen to munch before hitting the floor again so she would have something in her stomach. The newly hired (within 1 year) nurse manager for that floor caught her in the kitchen eating the crackers, scolded her, gave her a written reprimand and a counseling session to discuss "stealing" patient supplies. This is not an isolated incident. Several nurses I know of have gone to HR, and one that I know even went so far as to contact an attorney who told him he could not go up against the corp lawyers that they have and to look for another job even though he had done nothing wrong. If you go to HR, you have 300 days in which they can do nothing because it will be deemed retaliation.

Another nurse had to visit her sick father in neighboring state and took 2 days FMLA to do this. When she returned, she was called in to the office of the same newly hired nurse manager and asked, "So, what was the emergency? Do you have any documentation to support it?" This nurse has an excellent reputation and is even the house mom on occasion so to have this kind of critical, non-supportive, uncaring attitude to me is awful.

All the healthcare staff have been mandated to attend a "health fair" to confirm their shot records, we were told because the occupational nurse had mislaid so many that she couldn't verify our health records any longer. When we did so, we were given a stack of papers to sign stating that we grant access to our primary care providers records of us. Alot of us refused and wrote "HIPAA VIOLATION" on them instead. But just the fact that they're looking into our private personal health records outside of the hospital is offensive and feels very unsupportive, as if they're looking for something.

In addition, the nurses now are required to join a committee, to attend 90% of the staff meetings, to clock out at exactly the 12 hour time frame, which all sounds very reasonable unless you're a night-shifter and they don't offer the committee or staff meetings at night. But there are no exceptions and if you don't meet these "goals" for the PFD (Performance Feedback Development) evaluations done twice a year, then you don't get a pay raise. Wow.

The nursing satisfaction survey scores are so low. We thought this might change their choice of nurse managers since we rate them in this survey but it hasn't so far, and we've taken two surveys in which the satisfaction scores are less than 54%. It's so sad to have really loved going to work to now being fearful and dreading going to work.

Okay, I've vented now and I feel better. We were shown a film during a staff meeting that encouraged us not to speak of anything negative to one another but only positive discussion. We all tried for a while but now everyone is venting to each other. We don't know what else to do. No union, no striking, no support, it's really, really bad.

I don't know if the other Centura facilities are like this. I've heard Porter is absolutely wonderful to work for, SAC is "okay," but am not sure because I've never worked at those facilities.

Please write back and let me know how things are going. I'll be really curious, thanks!

nola1202 · Jun 22, 2011

When I started working at a Centura hospital in Colorado as a float pool RN in 2007, I was a traveler and decided to sign on because I loved the nursing staff and the total environment was supportive, friendly and like a family. Now I'm looking to travel again because the opposite has happened. When the economy took a nosedive last year, the administrators hired new managers and they are micro-managing the nursing staff like crazy. 12, yes 12 ER nurses have actually quit, no lie, and many of the floor nurses, i.e. med-surg, tele, PCU/ICU, have left or anticipate leaving very soon. It's the first thing people talk about when you get to work as many RN's are so anxious about feeling that they have no choice but to get out before they're let go for any slight whatsoever. As an example, an RN who's worked there many years and is well qualified had not taken a break all day and finally took a pack of 2 crackers in the kitchen to munch before hitting the floor again so she would have something in her stomach. The newly hired (within 1 year) nurse manager for that floor caught her in the kitchen eating the crackers, scolded her, gave her a written reprimand and a counseling session to discuss "stealing" patient supplies. This is not an isolated incident. Several nurses I know of have gone to HR, and one that I know even went so far as to contact an attorney who told him he could not go up against the corp lawyers that they have and to look for another job even though he had done nothing wrong. If you go to HR, you have 300 days in which they can do nothing because it will be deemed retaliation.
Another nurse had to visit her sick father in neighboring state and took 2 days FMLA to do this. When she returned, she was called in to the office of the same newly hired nurse manager and asked, "So, what was the emergency? Do you have any documentation to support it?" This nurse has an excellent reputation and is even the house mom on occasion so to have this kind of critical, non-supportive, uncaring attitude to me is awful.
All the healthcare staff have been mandated to attend a "health fair" to confirm their shot records, we were told because the occupational nurse had mislaid so many that she couldn't verify our health records any longer. When we did so, we were given a stack of papers to sign stating that we grant access to our primary care providers records of us. Alot of us refused and wrote "HIPAA VIOLATION" on them instead. But just the fact that they're looking into our private personal health records outside of the hospital is offensive and feels very unsupportive, as if they're looking for something.
In addition, the nurses now are required to join a committee, to attend 90% of the staff meetings, to clock out at exactly the 12 hour time frame, which all sounds very reasonable unless you're a night-shifter and they don't offer the committee or staff meetings at night. But there are no exceptions and if you don't meet these "goals" for the PFD (Performance Feedback Development) evaluations done twice a year, then you don't get a pay raise. Wow.
The nursing satisfaction survey scores are so low. We thought this might change their choice of nurse managers since we rate them in this survey but it hasn't so far, and we've taken two surveys in which the satisfaction scores are less than 54%. It's so sad to have really loved going to work to now being fearful and dreading going to work.
Okay, I've vented now and I feel better. We were shown a film during a staff meeting that encouraged us not to speak of anything negative to one another but only positive discussion. We all tried for a while but now everyone is venting to each other. We don't know what else to do. No union, no striking, no support, it's really, really bad.
I don't know if the other Centura facilities are like this. I've heard Porter is absolutely wonderful to work for, SAC is "okay," but am not sure because I've never worked at those facilities.
Please write back and let me know how things are going. I'll be really curious, thanks!

I interviewed with Centura when I first moved here and it was a weird vibe. The staff sounded stressed out and snappish, not at all what the "centura mission statement" suggested....I'm glad to hear Porter's is still ok.