Kaiser questions re: Traveling

[Nurse_Smith]

I have been traveling for a few years, mostly Ca & Az, but have not worked at a Kaiser hospital. After searching this site I found only one out of over two dozen comments to be positive. Can some of you California RNs and fellow travels give me a bit of advice on Kaiser in San Rafeal and in Redwood City? I have submitted my profile but have not interviewed as of yet. Can some of you confirm or debunk what I have read about floating frequently ( even 3 x's in a shift) and telephone interviewing w/ someone not even in nurse management? Any other bits about these two places would also be helpful. Thanks :balloons:

[Sheri257]

Not sure where you read negative comments about Kaiser on this board. Most of the posts I've read are positive.

And, most of the RN's I know who've worked at Kaiser are happy. The vast majority of complaints I've heard come from patients, but not employees.

[Nurse_Smith]

I did a search using the key words Kaiser and went through them systematically. None of them were from pt., most replys were from travelers. Many more post were from employees who seemed very happy w/ Kaiser.

Again any information would be helpful. TY

[1996RN]

i did 3 months at kaiser in north sacramento and it was great. it's a very rigid system (the higher-ups) and it takes some time to get into, just because of the whole interviewing process. kaiser likes to ask you pre-interview questions before they'll decide if they want to interview you. these are a lot of basic interview questions... tell me about the hardest nursing decision you've ever had to do, tell me your weaknesses, etc. my recruiter at the time asked the questions and wrote them down for kaiser. then i got a call from the nurse mgr and kaiser and interviewed with her. i have heard of someone from the hospital wanting to ask those pre-interview questions. sorry i dont know anything about the kaiser you mentioned. i have also heard consistently that kaiser will float its travelers q4h. i worked L&D and floated to PP about once every week or two. wasnt bad for me, but i'm not sure about other areas. some of the staff laugh at you because they are making way more money than travelers. but i ignored them and enjoyed the assignment.

amy

[1996RN]

i forgot to mention that all kaisers (i'm pretty sure it's all) subcontract their travel assignments though nursefinders. so you work for your agency, who has to answer to nursefinders, who plays the middle man between your agency and the hospital. you have to go to a paperwork orientation at nursefinders before they'll let you start.

amy

[Nurse_Smith]

Thank you L & D Amy, I interviewed w/ them yesterday and it went fine, and was offered the position. I did learn that there is a med/math test I will need to take but that wont be a problem. I will have to float first, but i have done that everywhere. I guess i will give them a try. thanks again:coollook:

[1996RN]

you're welcome. good luck and have fun!

[SFCardiacRN]

I have worked at the San Rafael and Redwood City and found them to be quite nice. The San Francisco Kaiser was very unpleasent. The rumor is that SF Kaiser has never had a travelor re-up for a second tour. It's been a while so things may have changed. The redwood city kaiser is a neuro center so stress that in your application.

[Loriilrn]

Kaiser uses recruiters to screen the applicants. This is to save time. Sometimes applicants exaggerate their experience and then end up not leaving soon after training.

I hope this helps.

[Haunted]

My experience with Kaiser was here in OC as registry. I went a few days a month, med/surg, 8 hours for over a year. I was constantly recruited by the admins and the per diem positions seem to pay very well. The competency exams required by my registry, Nursefinders are extremely detailed and rigid, they will turn applicants away if they feel they are substandard.

I listened to a lot of complaints from the patients about the quality of care they had received and personally would not want to be a patient in this particular facility, nor would I recommend it to family or friends. The nursing staff was overall friendly towards me but many expressed a desire to transition out of nursing altogether, can't really speak as to why.

This facility does seem to be top heavy with administration and I rarely got a CNA but they do have a "lift team" that makes rounds every few hours. The charting was hard to get used to, and I did not receive any unit or policy orientation so never signed my orientation evaluation.

Also, the staff seemed to prefer agency who would commit to long term assignments, makes sense to me but this facility was having problems getting agency to commit to long term assignments. If you are able to work independantly with little supervision and have a lot of energy, this facility might work for you! Little sarcasm there.

I know the No Cal facilities have been in the media quite a bit lately so don't know if you want to associate with that. Do some more research.