Shake Down at HCA

[Cheyenne RN,BSHS]

it is my understanding that hca is being sold to a private industry and already the buget aka staffing cuts have begun. nurse's will, of course be expected to do the extra lab draws that the no longer employeed phelbotomists did."

nurse's will also learn to do their own ekg;s and by the way, if you work on the medical/surg floor, you can float to both the er and the icu without any training because it is "kind of the same nursing."

i want to....need to...scream

waved by to the assitant administrator today. guess she is replaceable too...and three nurses left today well. 2 more fte's which are whole human beings with a nursing license have to be eliminated in several more areas "soon"

not sure what will happen next. anyone else out there having high anxiety about getting even more dumped on us nurses, as if we aren't already stretched too thin.

any other hca facilities feeling my pain? waaaaaa

[Sheri257]

This would explain some of the bizarre events happening at one of their facilities in California. Because of a labor dispute with the RN's, they called off all of the aides and, with the short staffing, a patient committed suicide. Now, they'll probably have a huge lawsuit because of that.

In California, RN's can find tons of other jobs immediately so ... if that's how they want to play it, so be it.

:typing

[ern91]

I Work At An Hca Facility In Houston. Haven't Seen Anything Like You Describe Yet. Maybe The Larger Facilities Are Getting Hit First. We Here Are All Hoping For Some Positive Changes But We All Know They Won't Be For The Nursing Staff. Never Is.

[Mulan]

Well, I don't know where you are working but I started at one of their facilities 12 years ago, and they were doing patient focused care then, the nursing staff did and still does all the lab draws, all the EKGs, and the oxygen.

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

Many facilities have nurses do the EKGs, labs, O2 and nebs. Nothing new about that.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

I have never worked at an HCA facility but have never heard anything but horror stories from them. The only good thing I've heard? They off and on offer ungodly bonuses and other monetary compensations because they can't get staff/keep staff. Sorry to hear of your woes, I would recommend to leave them immediately, don't wait for something tragic to happen.

[Sheri257]

They off and on offer ungodly bonuses and other monetary compensations because they can't get staff/keep staff.

Yeah ... I attended a job fair where they were offering cars and down payments on houses. All I could think of was ... why do they have to do that?

Now I know.

[Cheyenne RN,BSHS]

i agree there is nothing new about doing ekg's and lab draws, and i have done them.... when i worked in smaller facilities. but once you are in 200 plus hospital area with inpatients everywhere and out patients, day surgery, er, etc etc....it becomes impossible to keep up with what few machines exist from the ekg department.

i have done my own vent settings for respirators, inserted art lines, helped in pacu, worked l&d, as well as done breathing treatments in the er and run codes, you name it.... but again it was a smaller 100 or less bed hospital where the turnover rate, sheer volume and numbers of patients, and the care needs of the patients were different and the acuities not as high in a 24hour period.

level 1 trauma verses level 3 and 4 and rural areas verses large urban cities...the responsibilities of a nurse change variable on where she/he works.

once you have a hospital large enough to have it's own department, then usually it is because the patient needs and numbers have increased to warrant such a department and that has long been our case.

there are not enough ekg machines to place one on each floor, let alone each unit, and icu and er would out prioritize a medical floor or surgical uinit. i am not sure where outpatient day surgery would fit in priorities or endo or several other areas.

it becomes no longer a problem that nurses do not know how to perform a given task, or cannot do it, but that there is not enough equipment or staff to do nursing and perform the other departmental tasks facility wide.