The way this organization is run places so many barriers for nurses to do a good job. There is so much bureaucracy involved in providing care which creates so much extra work for nurses. There is a huge lack of communication between nurses and the offices. The amount of time involved with documenting takes away from the nursing as well. There is a hostile blame culture at Saint Elizabeth. Management is unsupportive. As a nurse, I want to enrich lives and empower the patients I cross paths with. However, it's hard to be a good nurse when you don't feel supported and are made to feel mediocre by upper management.
Training and orientation is unorganized and not motivating, especially for new nurses. Although Saint Elizabeth provides a clinical practice resource team hotline 24/7, it is simply not enough when more clinical support is needed. Often times I have found myself scheduled to see a complex client that needs a specific nursing task done that I have not been trained for but was scheduled to see that client anyway.
I found that when I had questions that needed answering, the upper management often pass the buck to another employee. Individual workers are expected to seek out their own training.
For example; if you wanted to get extra help learning how to work around a port a cath, you are expected to find a co worker to do a joint visit so you can (hopefully) learn in one visit. However, there are instances when the coordinators will schedule you to a client that you are not trained to care for, which is dangerous for both you and the client. Better training and clinical support is needed. Management should be more proactive with providing training as well.