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Why shouldn't they make more? Administrators are keeping the place together. I have never had a problem paying our CEO the $800,000 + that he makes. Lets see what he has done for us.
1. Kept the hospital solvent.
2. Negotiated for a new replacement hospital,
3. Flew all over the nation getting the funding set up for the new hospital
(It is a $340,000,000 project.)
4. Created a hospital system where we merged a smaller money loosing hospital into our organization saving them money, acquired a 51% interest in a growing, 4 location Imaging center, increased our clinic system from 7 to 12 clinics, created partnerships with three large Doctor groups that brought in additional revenue.
5. Discovered additional avenues to increase the revenue for our growing organization.
6. Put into place money saving programs that have helped to build on our bottom line.
I also don't have any problems paying Nurses. They are worth every penny and when you figure it out don't cost the hospital much of anything. Nurses work when patient load requires them to work. Hospitals can bill for the time that the patient is in the hospital.
If they do good for the company.. I'm all for it, Iv heard many CEO's... Still get parachute packages..If the company fails... and they get fired.. It should not be that way, If you fail the company it should just be Bye Bye..
Look at the title of this discussion. It is about RNs and the high cost of healthcare. A good chunk of healthcare costs are in hospitals and much of that is in end of life care. Reducing end of life care for people who are artificially kept alive on ventilators would reduce would substantially reduce the cost of health care in this country. Any politician who would suggest would be accused of promoting death panels, as we have seen in the past.
its interesting how you want to limit the discussion so much. sure, end of life care for the elderly makes up a large expense but there are other large expenses and all places should be addressed. also, cuts can be made in spending there without people complaining of "death panels."
My wife is a RN on a cardio floor. Makes about $33 hour (per diem). You'd have to pay me a helluva lot more than that to deal with some of the stuff she tells me. Take care of people's who testicles are bigger than a softball. Wipe people's butt. Get yelled out by crazy people. Sure, the CNAs do a lot of the crap work (amazing they barely get paid over $12/hr for that crap).
Doctors are what are driving the costs. They're a cartel. If we had unlimited medical education and certification there'd be no health care cost issue.
You can't have a discussion about hospital operational cost without looking at maintenance, plant operations, and clinical engineering. As medical technology advances, hospitals must budget to purchas and install the latest technology to keep competitive. Some of this tech isn't carried into the building, construction workers have to prep the operating room, radiology, or some other space just to get it ready. Then it has to be installed, calibrated and tested by certified techs, and approval for operation on patients. Beds, nurse call systems, telephones, and many other items goes out all the time so we have to keep a ready supply of parts on hand at all times. Hospital's boiler room or plant is more than a boiler. It includes boilers, generators, fire pumps for sprinklers, medical air compressors, vacuum pumps, water treatment systems, fire alarm system, medical gas system, HVAC system, and many more equipment. We also deal with elevators, dumb waiters, and pneumatic tube systems. You'd be shocked at our utility bill (water, electricity, natural gas, diesel). We're required by law to test our generators on a regular basis (we inspect weekly and load test once a month). We're required to run the electric and diesel fire pump every week. Total, we have close to 100 air handlers in the main hospital alone and we're about to enlarge. With increases in patient/city population, the hospital must also grow. That's a big chunk if change. Modern energy management control systems do reduce our HVAC's energy usage. However, administration uses this surplus of energy to help justify new medical equipment purchases. Some of these devices are huge energy hogs. Even when off they draw a huge amount if energy to be ready when needed. Sometimes we must do the impossible like do whatever it takes to keep a 50 year old air handler running and cooling until we get approval for the hundreds of thousands of dollars to finally replace it with a new model. Sometimes problems are caused by the patients themselves, mostly women. The most disruptive problems were the women flushing chucks (those blue plastic pads with absorbent material staff place on patient's beds. Twice these items were flushed and resulted in closing an entire patient wing (12 beds each). This was labor and delivery. Took two plumbers nearly twelve hours to get it unclogged. Women, tampons, maxi pads, urine sample cups, and food does not go in the toilet. I've been working in a hospital boiler room for the past 13 years and I gross $35,000 a year. Not much pay for the work we do, but it's a steady job with benefits. Oh, and we don't get hospital discounts for getting care where we work. We do get free flu shots. Our department gets free chest x-rays once every three years for asbestos screening. It's a 50 year old building. Though most asbestos has been removed, we're still exposed to some nasty stuff on a daily basis. You see, if a hoapital enlarges or adds more nursing staff then they can handle more patients which is more income. Our job doesn't generate revenue. But if we don't do our job the hospital would loose patients and people could get killed. We're also the first responders for non-medical emergencies like fire or people trapped in elevators. You'd be surprised how much of our job impacts patient comfort and health.
Hospital Administration would agree with you on this. The problem is that they have no say so in how many RN's are needed, the state does this. (In California anyway).
Each Nurse is assigned a CNA but here is the kicker, each CNA has 3 or 4 RN's that he or she is working for. The CNA could have up to 16 patients where the RN has no more than 4 patients.
This depends upon the facility, the state it's located in, and the type of unit/area. There are many hospitals in the country where RNs routinely have 7 to 8 in-patients each and even then, not all have their own CNA assigned to them.
I am also in facilities. Started as a locksmith for our hospital. Learned Plant Operations by being there. Moved on to Facilities Management.
CheyDee,
I can only speak for California. True on the dicipline of Nursing. Our ICU, CCU, NICU RN's care for one patient while on shift while the Surg Recovery RN's can have up to 4.
its interesting how you want to limit the discussion so much. sure, end of life care for the elderly makes up a large expense but there are other large expenses and all places should be addressed. also, cuts can be made in spending there without people complaining of "death panels."
Your idea of cutting healthcare costs is similar to Romney's idea of cutting the deficit by cutting Big Bird and PBS funding.
Doctors are what are driving the costs. They're a cartel. If we had unlimited medical education and certification there'd be no health care cost issue.
if you had unlimited education and certification it would be a disaster
most people are complete idiots barely capable of tying their own shoes let alone being medical doctors
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