Providence Medical Center KC Kansas

[imastudentnurse]

Anyone here know what they start their RN's out at? I am considering this hospital as a career choice. Pros Cons anyone? thanks

[hospitalstaph]

Last I heard they started around 20.75/hr, 3/hr night diff, and 2/hr weekend diff. That was a year or so ago. Check with someone that works there or HR.

Good luck to you!

[sunshineyday]

Avoid this place like the PLAGUE!!!

[blondegenes]

I agree,,,avoid Providence.

They lied about nurse/patient ratio. It's higher on nights.

They came to our nursing school and offered us "sign-on bonuses", turns out that this is "tuition reimbursement",,,which they actually ended up paying to some grads from different nursing schools as actual "sign-on bonuses" and not to others. Even some grads who didn't have to pay for their own tuition, and had student loans got the "sign-on bonuses". Other nurses have gone to HR with this issue, so far nothing.

Students who graduated from my nursing school were really ticked that they did so, and didn't offer it to any of the other nursing school grads.

HR has no answer for why this was done, and isn't offering to pay the other grads their "sign-on bonuses" accordingly, yet.

Patient ratios are high, even higher on nights.

If your patient ration is low, you will end up having to do all your own CNA stuff.

Some units only have unit secretaries until midnight, because they play video games on the computer and fart around, so you'll end up doing all your own entering orders and such, too.

Nurse orientation is very odd.

You can request a particular preceptor, but they don't have to give you that one. You can request a change in preceptor, and additional weeks.

I know someone who ended up getting a preceptor who has been a nurse for only one year. In my book, that's pretty risky.

They want to get you out on the floor at week 8, not 12 as they say.

Again, pretty risky.

Anyone else got any info on nurse patient ratios at other Kansas City area hospitals?

[doglover1]

I think some hospitals are much better to start at than others. I'm a new nurse and started at KU's PCU. We have 3-4 patients with good tech support. From my 6 months of experience, KU does everything possible to make sure that nurses have the resources that we need to be successful and patient safety is always the #1 priority. I've heard horror stories from places like HCA hospitals and how they treat their nurses and wouldn't even consider working at one of them (not to mention ever being a patient there! Yikes!!) As far as Providence, I've heard mixed reviews. Have some of these hospitals ever done the math on how much it ends up costing them in turnover alone NOT have good nurse/patient ratios????

[eddy]

Providence has a very poor reputation in the KC area. They really need to learn how to staff the place. It's bad.

[standout22]

Worked there for the length of the orientation process as a new grad. I left one week post graduation, enough said. In my time there they were investigated by the state 2 times.

[KansasRN2008]

I currently work at Providence :uhoh21: on one of the Med-Surg units. (I believe I graduated with BlondeGenes. I even believe we started there at the same time and went through orientation together.) I will say right now that staffing is totally ridiculous. We are VERY understaffed. I work days and end up having 5-6 patients daily, multiple admissions/discharges, and not to mention patients who are total care or need assistance getting up and back to bed. Nights have just about the same ratio as we do. Mind you that we have THREE meals to monitor on our shift with patients that need assistance eating and multiple people coming in and out all day long to work with the patient. So if people on night shift are feeling so busy and overwhelmed, triple that! Ridiculous... We have most days 1 CNA on our floor for all 18 patient rooms (sometimes 2 if we are lucky enough). Some days they give us 2 CNAs only to end up cutting them early in the shift. Most times we only have 3 nurses on our floof left to handle 5-6 patients each with NO SUPPORT from clinical supervisors. I feel very unappreciated for all of the hard work that I do. I believe in the 6 months I have worked there, I have gotten off on time 715 pm ONCE... I have to stay late to finish up gobs of paperwork that I didnt have time to even sit down to do at all. MOST days, I do not even get to take a lunch break because no one will come cover us. As far as a unit secretery, we have one until 3PM and she leaves. For the rest of the shift someone from our other unit is supposed to come down but they end up being MIA and saying "I'll be right back". They dont break down charts, rarely put in orders, and are very lazy all together. They would rather talk with housecleaners or others than do what they are supposed to be doing, leaving us to put in our own orders on top of trying to carry out orders.

Us nurses, who are on our feet for 12 hours rarely get to sit down because doctors and miltiple mutlidisciplinary staff come in and plop down in our seats when our books are clearly at the desk that we had been working at. The hospital needs to be a bigger and better advocate for their nurses....

One last IMPORTANT thing... In December I was hospitalized and found out that I had contracted C. Diff from this place. I had NO criteria (im young, no prior antibiotic use, etc.) for being able to have it except for contact in the hospital. I have battled them for weeks now trying to get Workman's Comp because it is an occupational acquired illness. They wanted to argue with me and say it wasnt contracted there. News to them... DOCTORS take charts into isolation rooms all the time, dont gown/glove, use their own personal stethoscopes, etc. and continue to carry the germs out to the nurses stations. I am the 2nd person on our unit to get C. Diff. The other was our unit secretary who DOES NOT go into patient rooms... so what does this tell you?? I was told in the hospital I was admitted in that C. Diff has spores and they can live on surfaces for MONTHS. The only thing that kills them is Chlorox Bleach... yet we dont use bleach on our unit to clean. Those little wipes do not kill off C. Diff spores either. Now that I had that I am SUPER paranoid because it was a horrible experience. I clean my station with Chlorox Bleach Anywhere Hard Surface spray to protect myself AND others. A night RN a few weeks back had said something to me about it. Apparently some people think there is a problem with trying to AVOID getting this and me relapsing. Total bullsh*t.... Anyways... I am looking for hospitals to get a new job at. I am looking into better pay rates and another thing better accumulations of PTO & Ext. Sick because at Providence it takes an eternity to save up anything! They dont give you much leave per pay period. Therefore when i got sick, they took EVERYTHING from me. Well.. I am done ranting and raving but please do reply with questions or comments and i will reply!!

-KansasRN2008-

[blondegenes]

I was lucky to have 5 patients per shift!

I normally had 6 and was up to bat for any new admits.

Early on in my preceptorship, learning period, I had 7.

You can't learn anything with that many patients.

I've known many other new nurses who have had high acuity patients dumped on them,

when the not-so-new-nurses spent hours sitting at the computers, rarely checking on their patients.

Being a preceptor is a great opportunity to be able to have the new nurse do the work,

while preceptors sit on their butts.

We had some great new nurses who really busted their butts.

The harder they worked, the more they got heaped on them.

After one year, there are very few nurses left from the bunch that started around the time that I did,

and those are pursuing work elsewhere, because they are not appreciated for their hard work.

I had one great preceptor whom the unit head would not schedule me with on a regular basis,

and two terrible preceptors. We had been told that they would match us up with whomever was a

"good fit", and make "adjustments" in preceptors as needed. That didn't happen.

Bottom line, Providence runs on the "profit is God".

They fail to recognize that it's costing them much more money to maintain status quo.

Poor reputation and resulting lawsuits aren't cheap, either.

Statistics indicate that some nurses actually quit nursing in their first year, altogether,

quit med/surg nursing never to return,

and move to other areas of nursing employment that won't ruin their physical and mental health.

Driving nurses into the ground their first year greatly contributes to the nursing shortage.

It is refreshing that other hospitals recognize the benefits of low nurse:patient ratios

and the value of nurses.

[KansasRN2008]

I agree... Im still at PMC and currently looking for a new job. The last many shifts I have worked I have started out with 6 patients. We have called for 5 nurses on the floor and never get a 5th nurse only to be told that we may have people going home throughout the day so we dont need 5 nurses... when they know that once one gets discharged they give us one right back. Frankly, Im tired of the way were treated at PMC and when i leave it will be the best move ever made. Sadly to say I will indeed miss me coworkers who have been great to me. Management here SUCKS

[KansasRN2008]

P.S. I just recently ended up having to pay a medical bill from JANUARY of 2009 that was supposidly "taken care of" workers comp... each time i received a bill in the mail i took it to them.. after the 7th notice I finally paid it on my own and will try for reimbursement.. bottom line DONT HURT YOURSELF OR GET SICK ON THE JOB BECAUSE THEY DONT FOLLOW WORKERS COMP GUIDELINES!!!! Oh yeah and they took all my PTO & ESL from me because I hadnt been there a year and I never got any of it back when I got the workers comp claim approved....