Training is deplorable. You get four days of New Employee Orientation. During this time, you will basically learn policies of the corporation and you will sign off on everything acknowledging you have received training. Of course, this is to cover liability issues and understandably so. The trainers are very nice and you will enjoy this week, however this will not help you at all with your specific job. You get two days of on the job training, three if you ask for it. During these two days, you need to learn the EHR system, Next Gen. There is no formal training so if you are not familiar with it, beware! You also need to learn their specific protocols, policies and procedures but you are not allowed to print them because they change so rapidly. I kid you not! You have standing orders for certain meds but you are not allowed to use them unless you get authorization from Provider. Really not helpful when you cannot even get your on-call to answer their phone and they come in two hours late. There is no Pyxis. The med system is a tackle box that you have to break a zip tie on every time you get into it, record the tag number and record the replacement. You have paper MARS and you chart on the computer although there is no consensus on that. You also will need to enter all of your meds orders into the computer. The acuity of some of the patients who are detoxing is high and it is hard to get reliable health histories. You have 8 to 16 patients in an open bay with a constant flow of admissions and discharges. There is almost no core staff. If you get training, it will have to come from agency nurses and that can be difficult. You go in with the intention of doing a great job but you soon learn it is impossible. The structure or lack thereof, makes it very difficult to be a good nurse or even a safe nurse.
