Comments on: Can Medicine Learn A Lesson From Sprint?

By: Drama Mama

Drama Mama — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:53:31 +0000

This has got to be one of the best post ever!
I have been with a Big Med Corp for a long time and it is the same BS! They micromanage us til we become nothing but highly trained robots! And management threatens us by tellin us how many people are waiting for our jobs- They can have it and the BS that goes with it!

By: Spook, RN

Spook, RN — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:19:29 +0000

[QUOTE]In fact I read about hospitals that will pay huge signing bonuses for nurses to come on staff. Then, once the nurses start working, they get treated like crap. They stay just long enough to keep the signing bonus, then leave and tell everyone else how miserable it is to work at the hospital. End result? Hospital has less money. No one wants to work there. More staff attrition.[END QUOTE]

Doc,

Story of my life. I was offered $2000 as a sign on bonus for a 10 month commitment. Not a bad offer for the area/location I was working at. However, soon enough, it became apparent WHY I was being offered that kind of cash - a glance through my blog ought to give you an idea. Working conditions SUCKED. It’s gotten so bad that I handed in my 2 week notice yesterday - I’ve been there barely 18 months! We lose 2 nurses every year - especially on night shift (we are less than 50% staffed on nights. I routinely take care of 8 post-op patients. It’s beyond criminal!)

Incidentally, I was offered a med-surg-to-ER position at a hospital out West: $15,000 sign on bonus (first $10,000 to be paid within the first 10 months of employment) along with a $7,000 relocation allowance. It made me sit up and think - what could be the reason they’d throw 20 grand to someone just to get them to come and work there? As tempting as it was, I turned that position down.

I now have a job in an ER in a different state. They didn’t offer me a sign-on bonus - but I hear that their turnover is less than 2%

cheers,
Spook

By: teresa

teresa — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:43:43 +0000

The real fun starts when the company starts waterboarding employees as a team building exercise:

From the company spokesman, “It’s voluntary, it’s humorous, it’s team and camaraderie-building,” Ellis said.

Oh, yeah, that’s humorous. I’m still laughing over that. Really funny. And you know, I’m thinking I would have thought it a LOT funnier if it happened to ME.

By: The Happy Hospitalist

The Happy Hospitalist — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:59:25 +0000

I am a Sprint defector after 10 years of service. I decided to leave when a Sprint worker in the sprint store treated me like complete shit.

I decided as soon as my contract ended I would switch.

And then the iPhone came out and I knew my calling. Best decision I ever made.

I agree completely with the analogy between Sprint and health care. In a market where the people speak with their wallets, Sprint either changes or becomes irrelevant.

By: Hospital Adim: Quality

Hospital Adim: Quality — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:41:52 +0000

The world of Business has some great lessons to learn, but one of the setbacks is that healthcare does not get to set its own pricing. We are expected to provide the best care possible, (requiring research and studies) have the most current technology available (requiring HUGE dollars - the public has no idea what our equipment costs are!) and give impeccable kind, courteous and TIMELY service. (requiring physicians, hospital staff and plenty of them!) And what do we get paid for all this? The least amount that insurance companies, HMO’s and CMS can get away with! Its just tough to do business that way.

By: Nurse K

Nurse K — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:31:17 +0000

Now that our ER is so routinely understaffed, our charge nurses have started a trend to “go on ambulance divert for the whole shift” as a remedy. If we only have 50% of the staff we’re supposed to, sorry, no ambulances.

Ambulance divert even for a short while is a big money-loser for the hospital, so it’s making people notice.

By: Nyuk Nyuk

Nyuk Nyuk — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:25:11 +0000

it’s apparent that it is everywhere then, not just in my little slice of feudal fifedom……
I think it’s been summed up before by someone far more eloquently than moi……..Penny wise, Dollar stupid….
They just keep chipping away “making it better” for us serfs…..

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:36:13 +0000

Same thing is happening in retail pharmacy. When I got told to”suck it up, I (manager) don’t want to deal with it” with regards to a very serious problem, I told her I didn’t want to deal with it either…and quit. and there is a HUGE demand for pharmacist up here…

By: Michael Llaneza

Michael Llaneza — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:19:43 +0000

I used to work for Sprint’s ad agency after the merger. My suggestion for an ad to bring back all the customers who defected was as follows:

Introduce the VP in charge of customer support. Throw him out a window. Introduce his replacement and promise the customers that things will get better in a hurry.

It would have been a fairly cheap spot to produce, 100k tops for filming it, 3 million to the ex-VP’s family. Would have paid for itself many times over in a hurry. Heck, just firing the guy in the ad would have been worthwhile.

Or Sprint could have made a deal with Reebok and announced the hiring of an office linebacker for every call center.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94