Orlando Health Paying RNs More than Fl. Hospital Orlando

Rod, Male Nurse · Jan 31, 2015

6 months ago when I worked at a hospital in their system the techs/CNAs do vitals, blood sugars, and they were also trained to be the phlebs. Nurses and aids drew blood and lab was called for hard sticks. I was very impressed by how much the techs actually did so the nurses could focus more on patient care.

As far as pay goes, I am unsure because I was a travel nurse so my pay was unrelated to full time staff. There was a low turnover rate and they kept the nurses happy with very fair patient ratios for nurses and aids.

Preeps · Feb 1, 2015

So your experience at Florida Health sounds good. Did you work at the main hospital in Orlando?

CardiacRNLA, BSN · Feb 2, 2015

I will only say this as a new grad. I am quitting nursing all together because of my experience at FL Hospital. Nurses do everything! Even one of my patients asked once "Do you have any CNAs here? You have to do it all!" And at nights it is worse. Often there is no unit secretary, and only one or no tech for a 45 bed unit. Nurses always call out and nurses are stretched to 5 patients. Which may not be the worst, but when you are doing toileting, ambulation, changing sheets, bathing, phlebotomy, blood sugars, vitals, getting numerous snacks, garden variety call bells, it is overwhelming. As for Preeps, at least for my unit, there is low morale. Nurses leave units all the time, but seem to go to other units or other hospitals within the system. I heard Celebration or Altamonte are okay to work. The main hospital is a mad house. And if you get an admission, forget it. I trained in a hospital with fair tech-patient and nurse-patient ratios. I may never work as a nurse again but I would rather have my sanity than crying every day or feeling panic before every shift.

CardiacRNLA, BSN · Feb 2, 2015

Also, depending on your charge nurse, your assignment can totally suck, with two or more total care patients, and a admission during your shift on top of all the other stuff I mentioned. So yeah, if Orlando Health pays better and has all that Rod said. Do it and do NOT look back!!!!! Florida Hospital works their nurses into the ground!

Sippie · Feb 2, 2015

If you don't like your current position and it is not safe then by all means leave but don't give up nursing. I worked a job once that had 10-11 patients total care on a very busy med surg/ tele floor. I felt it was seriously unsafe. We were 'supposed' to have nurse's aids but they would quit all the time or not show up for work etc etc. If they didn't we were just stuck. It happened all the time. When I interviewed for the job they told me I would have 7 patients at the most. NOT!!

That hospital had such a high RN turnover and even the RN travelers (which they used a ton of..surprise surprise) left before their contracts were over half the time. I stuck it out for a year only because we moved there from somewhere else and my dh also worked at this hospital and I had 3 kids. If I didn't have kids to support I prob would have gave my 2 weeks and left sooner.

Preeps · Feb 2, 2015

Yes this sounds very familiar. It is so sad that nursing has come to this. It is very unsafe. Florida Hospitals creed is "the healing ministry of Christ" however they do not take care of their own employees. They are so stressed and overwhelmed. You described it perfectly. How can the nurses take care of the patients properly when they are stressed and stretched to the limit.

tsipareht · Feb 4, 2015

Anyone on this page got hired with FL Hospital? I start in a couple of weeks in the critical care unit. PM please.

newgrad4_ · Feb 5, 2015

I just got hired for a position for mother/baby at nights. I heard of the heavy patient load and hope it doesn't stress me out. I am relocating and would be very upset to relocate just to come back to Miami. Does anyone have experience on the Mother/Baby floor?

Preeps · Feb 8, 2015

I have not worked on that floor but just from what I hear it is not as bad as the adult surgical/PCU and medical floors at Florida Hospital Orlando. A friend of mine use to work on that floor (and the only reason she left is she moved out of state) and the comparison of my adult PCU floor to her job was like night and day. This was several years ago but she enjoyed her job.

lsvgsdawn · Feb 28, 2015

I was part of FH critical care GN program a while ago. After hitting the floor I was not excited to see that the program was not as organized as I thought FH would be. There were no techs of course in ICU but the hospital had gone to all the nurses doing the lab draws too. A few [[/img]friends also are working at other FH locations and they are on med/surg and PCU and they have a tech but the tech is worn thin. The techs are also not responsible for accuchecks or vitals... The nurses have to do this and they also have to do blood draws. I chose to leave right before the contract would have locked in set in stone. They do give a kind of one month period before it sets in. It was a great opportunity but as a new grad I didn't think it was responsible to have new grads in a disorganized program and then have to owe them 13500 dollars if I had to leave or if they felt it wasn't working. They also pay poorly. I am now at a community hospital. Much smaller but no contract and they are giving me a good amount of orientation time as a new grad. This community hospital has techs that do vitals and accuchecks and a lab who draws morning labs. And they have two unit secretaries during day shift.This community hospital also pays way better and the people are nicer. Best decision I ever made!!! At the time I knew I loved the environment of the ICU but FH is taking a lesson from Disney... Hire a bunch of new college grads ... Pay them crap and overwork them because they should just be lucky they got a job. No thanks.

Preeps · Feb 28, 2015

I think that you summed up nursing at Florida Hospital Orlando very well. I have friends that work in Apopka FH community hospital and they have techs that do accu checks and vitals. In Orlando we are responsible for all nursing assessments, meds, etc. plus minimum 3 sets of vitals per patient, accu-checks which is 3x daily (minimum) for 4 patients. We are responsible for all lab draws and are now phlebotomists.

Plus we are required to accompany all PCU monitored patients to all test procedures. Sometimes we have 2 patients that go off the floor out the same time and if we call our charge RN they always say, "ask your buddy for help." Of course our "buddy" is just as crazed as we are.

We are so busy doing every other departments jobs that we have little time for actual nursing.

Of course we are also expected to hourly round as well as round with the doctors. How on earth could one person accomplish all of this?

And doing the job well is impossible. I cannot believe this is how Florida Hospital wants to treat their patients not to mention their employees.

Something is rotten at Florida Hospital Orlando. The nurse managers are very aware of it but they are so afraid of keeping up their image and/or losing their jobs that the refuse to intervene on our behalf.