RENOWN HEALTH makes a resounding thud

U.S.A. Nevada

Published

Have any of you all heard all the hoopla in Reno about the new "branding" attempts by Washoe Medical Center????

Short review of events:

Over a year ago, the suits in the penthouse offices decided that a name like "Washoe Medical Center" sounded too much like a "county hospital" (Snide aside: You know, one of those places that treat the unattractive and under-funded sick folk.) So, they let it be known that they were in consultation with marketing geniuses (another S.A.: the kind that charge many dollars per hour for their time) to come up with a new "brand name" with which to label our great hospital and health care system (or... in the terminology of marketing experts... our "product".)

Last Thursday, in the pre-dawn hours when I came to work... the place was all over with TV satellite trucks and cables for cameras and microphones and reporters and canope's and tables laden with gimmick gear and fancy eats... all in our new institutional signature colors... are you ready??? purple and school bus yellow!!!!

And the name all the geniuses came up with IS....

RENOWN HEALTH!!!!

When we (non-geniuses) heard about it we were like... "Ok. Stop with the jokes. Now tell us really. What is the new name?"

Already we're known in the community as RETARTED REGIONAL. The panoply of jokes about the new name is huge.

"Mayo Clinic was so jealous of our new name, they are changing theirs to SUPERFABULOUS MEDICAL CENTER." Southwestern Medical Center, University of Texas in Dallas will be renaming themselve "YIP-YIP-YAHOO!!! HOSPITAL. And the University of Minnesota is going to call their tertiary care center PRETTY-GOOD-HOSPITAL-MOSTLY"

Otherwags have decided that Monty Python (who famously came up with the "Ministry of Silly Walks") has created a "Central Administration for Stupid Names" and that RENOWN HEALTH was the only one left when the geniuses went to choose ours.

Alternatively, folks are beginning to imagine that RENOWN sure sounds like the name Big Pharma is going to pin on their next pill for erectile disfunction. Instead of the hallmark blue it will be purple with big yellow stripes. "Take one... and be RENOWN for the night!"

A nurse confronted a neurosurgeon who was rounding in a set of scrubs from our competing hospital. She admonished him that he was breaking with the new spirit, and that soon RENOWN is going to have the OR personnel in the signature purple scrubs. He just looked at her like this was awful. Then, she went on to explain, your bonnets and booties are going to be bright yellow. (Now he was looking genuinely apalled). And THEN she said, they'll give you the big red rubber nose to wear with it. Everyone cracked up laughing.

You gotta laugh or you'll cry.

Seriously... when our unit is slammed with transfers from ICU, post op neurosurgical patients, and direct admits from ER... we aren't allowed to call in another nurse. Budgets being what they are, of course. But they can spend incredible amounts on this frivolous foolishness (including website makeovers, the verbiage and images on our hospital vehicles, our name tags, every sign throughout the campus, big media events, consultants, PR experts...) it's enough to make you want to weep.

And it just gets better. We're going to all get new monochrome scrubs to wear. Housekeeping in THEIR scrub-colors, dietary in theirs, clerical in their own unique shades, and all the nurses will be wearing the specified "Nurse Colored" scrubs. We are convinced they are going to put us in Big-Bird Yellow.

Oh, give me strength.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

You have my sympathies............what IS health care coming to??:(

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Specializes in SRNA.

Hey Tulip...yeah, I'm in Reno and have been hearing all the hoopla about this name change. I'm in school with a few people who work there and when they told me the name, I thought they were joking. My class met at Washoe during our first week of clinical and we were told the name was changing...then I started to see the Washoe name and blue accenting was taken off that building over on Ryland...then the purple went up...finally the name was announced.

I can understand that they haven't been a county hospital in over 20 years and them wanting to change the perception of folks around here that still thought of them like that....but Renown Health? I just seems like they're tootin' their own horn right in their name.

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Hey Tulip...yeah, I'm in Reno and have been hearing all the hoopla about this name change. I'm in school with a few people who work there and when they told me the name, I thought they were joking. My class met at Washoe during our first week of clinical and we were told the name was changing...then I started to see the Washoe name and blue accenting was taken off that building over on Ryland...then the purple went up...finally the name was announced.

I can understand that they haven't been a county hospital in over 20 years and them wanting to change the perception of folks around here that still thought of them like that....but Renown Health? I just seems like they're tootin' their own horn right in their name.

Yeah... you're absolutely right. It's unseemly in its arrogance. But, even if it was mistaken for an old-style county hospital, is there anything essentially shameful or bad about that? I think it's more honorable to convey the idea that your hospital is there for everyone in need, no matter what, rather than being a slick, hip, stylish place for the attractive and rich.

Just hits the wrong note. Bad taste.

Nevadapolitics.com and Renodiscontents.com are two blogs that have picked it up. It's not going over at all well.

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Specializes in SRNA.

I think calling it Washoe will be a hard habit to kill...it's like the people who call the Reno Hilton the MGM...I mean calling the Grand Sierra Resort the MGM, lol...or make references to the Clarion instead of the Atlantis...

Thanks for the links to the local blogs!

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Specializes in Medical/Surgical/Maternal and Child.

Tulip what's the scuttle butt on St. Mary's Regional Medical Center being bought by a Catholic health care corporation? I worked at both St. Mary's and the old Washoe Med back in the 90's before, during and after nursing school. I actually loved working at both hospitals and they both had their good and their bad. Is the competition between the two still as fierce as it used to be?

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Specializes in SRNA.

My clinical rotation is at Saint's and they're joining Catholic Healthcare West:

Saint Mary's to Join CHW

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Specializes in ER.

Purple and (hack!) yellow?

Ewwww, they need to consult someone else. I think bright yellow scrubs should be grounds for a resignation letter, or at least a union protest. Noone looks good in flourescent yellow.

Patient complaints will start pouring in R/T lack of sleep when glow-in-the-dark nurses start making rounds. Wait til Press Gainey gets involved.

Seriously, how much did they spend, and whose bright idea WAS this?

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There was recently the big annual formal Seasonal party/ball/ schoomz the medical staff holiday party that the hospital puts on. Rumor had it that the whole color scheme, rather than being seasonal (gold, silver, red, green or whatever) was all purple and yellow.

BTW: Had a 93 y.o. pt who was an area native, and I had to do the usual mental status testing...

Do you know what year it is? What month? (He did) Do you know where you are?

"Oh, you're d--mn straight I do! I'm at that hospital that changed it's name to some fool thing. I don't know why they had to take the county's name off of it. Why you'd think there was only one town in the whole county! Like don't they know that a lot of folks live in Sparks and used to feel they were a part of this community.... etc. etc.

I almost charted it verbatim and added "alert, oriented and appropriate."

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Specializes in SRNA.

Renown just came to our student nurses association meeting today to talk about Apprentice Nurse II and New Grad positions and the guy asked all of us if we liked the name change.... There was this collective groan of about 40 nursing students...definitely an uncomfortable moment for him.

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I usually don't have a spare moment to respond, just lurk usually...but I had to chime in....this is awful! Why doesn't anyone EVER ask the nurses...you know, the backbone of healthcare....what WE think????

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Oh my gosh - what a ridiculous name. Where do these people come from? Star Trek conventions?

I had my first child at St. Mary's - lived in Reno about a year.

We had a similar issue here a few years back. The town of Central Valley, which was an important part of building Shasta Dam, decided to pretty itself up and change the name of the town. Of course, behind Shasta Dam is Shasta Lake. Always been called Shasta Lake.

So, the power's that be decided to change Central Valley's name to Shasta Lake and Shasta Lake became "Lake Shasta".

I and many others refuse to call them by any other name than the town of Central Valley (which has a high school still called Central Valley High School because Shasta High was already taken) and Shasta Lake.

The proud history of Central Valley, as a huge part of building the dam was just overlooked.

Thanks for the blogs -

steph

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