VA Hospital

U.S.A. Pennsylvania

Published

Does anyone work at the VA and if so are you happy there? Pros & cons?

damn you have palms....now I am totally jealous...lol. That would be a great improvement we only have the LXE. I myself REALLY like CPRS & use it all the time. I wish we had nationwide communication within the system for our frequent travelers, would be nice to have the info readily when they decide to come back north & such. The bad thing of completely computerized records however is in a code situation you don't have all the info at hand like you would a paper chart. BCMA could be a wonderful system & in actuality I enjoy it, it is not more time efficient & this presents a prob when you are already working horribly short. The main problem I see at our facillity is getting the various services to stop fingerpointing & work together *sigh* if this would happen with more frequency then perhaps some of the kinks could be worked out. Long Island sounds a bit better in regard to atmosphere, too bad I couldn't do the additional hour of commuting each way...

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our doctors can get info from computers about vets if they travel within their own visn but i'm not sure about getting info from really long distances between states--alot of the vets travel ny to fla and gets gettting info difficult--our secretaries print out "health summaries' when pt is admitted so there is some info available on the charts although it could be not to up to date--there is a health summary icon on the computer labeled for the bcma backup and i'm going to check if it an up-to-date version could be printed when we are on downtime-i'm not that great with computers but certainly love bcma and cprs--we are currently remodeling our unit and we were going to downsize our beds but decision for the higher-ups said NO--no real reason given so i'd like to do a little survey among va hospitals--my question is "What is your largest number of beds you have on any single unit??" my unit holds 39 pts(but will be going down to 37 after remodeling).i'd like to know the bed capacity of other va units--thanks

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Specializes in Nursing Education.

Hey all ... VISN 6 here! I have worked at the VA now for a little over 2 months. We have our good days and bad days, but I do love the VA. Considering I spent most of my professional life in the civilian hospital side, the VA is not half as bad. Love the technology as well as the people. Taking good care of the Vets is my first priority! As far as BCMA .... I agree, you wither love it or hate it. For me its ok. Hate it when my med pass is running late and I have to explain why. Love CPRS though ... we are totally paperless and that makes things a lot better for the privacy of the vet.

Good luck to those who are new.

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I work at the same facillity as Titania...I love my job...don't care much for working elsewhere in this VA... we are short but can't seem to hold on to the new ones who come... I would like to do something different in psych nursing but right now I am holding fast to a good paying job ( will have to wait until I can afford to work my Nirvana position)...for the most part the VA people are a big part of my wanting to stay (and I am talking solely about the proletariat), and have grown very fond of our revitisists (we have a revolving door group of psych patients at times)...I say welcome to the VA... there is much wrong with the system but good as well... I found that my old private sector job had many of the same issues... it's what you make it... things are changing with the VA but you have to wonder why so many have 25 or 30+ years here

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I am still so new at the VA, I am on week 3 of orientation,and that is all general hospital and nursing orientation. What I really like the most of what I have seen is that the doctors enter all their orders themselves into the computer, no verbal orders accepted. I will be glad when orientation is over and I can get back to my night shifts again.

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heeeeeeyyyy Minky good to cya, again....lol.

Lemme see our unit is locked psych admit & we just got approval to up our bed capacity to 26. Now in the nursing home they can have as many a 60 per unit. Most of the psych units have between 25-30.

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