nursing assistant

registered practical nurse

state tested nursing assistant

nurse's aide

licensed practical nurse

Altercare Integrated Health Services

The night shift at Altercare of Nobles Pond is my preferred shift simply because I am a night person anyway. The facility has two sides. One is an extended care facility. The side that I work on is the rehabilitation side. These are the patients that one would see in a hospital setting. They need help recovering from injuries or surgeries. They have intravenous medications, peg tubes, and tracheotomy devices that I have to take care of. There is one patient that was admitted on dialysis that all of the RN's and LPN's had to attend an inservice on. I now have to hook the patient up to the machine at night and the extended facility side has to start the dialysis. They also have wounds that I have to take care of in the treatment section of our system.  They generally come into our facility with the wounds. If they develop the wound in our facility we call their family and document it on a wound grid. We have to do our admission assessment on the patient and do a skin assessment on patients that we admit on our shift. If they have a wound or bruise, we have to do a wound grid on them. This is simply documenting the length, width, and depth and where it is located on the body. We also add what the wound looks like and any drainage the would may have. I have learned how to manage time since I have to take care of 25 patients at once and learn how to take on the needs of the therapy staff, transport staff, doctors and Nurse Practitioners.  I have to pass medications on all of these 25 patients which handling other issues that may arise. I get along with all of the nurses, licensed practical nurses, and nurse aides as well. I love all of the staff and patients at my new job. The hardest part of the job is day shift while trying to pass medications to all of these patients (25 patients) which handling other issues that arise as well. The transport staff needs paperwork on patients that may have doctors appointments and they need to have their face sheet to know about the patient and how they are being transported to the appointment. The absolute hardest part of the job is seeing people pass away. I have seen two people pass away on my shift in less than one month of working here. When a CABG is admitted and I get report on that patient for the night I worry immediately that there may be complications with the patient and I pay extra attention to them.  My absolute favorite part of the job is that all of my patients are pleasant with me. I love all of them and I especially love talking with them and hearing their stories. I am truly blessed that all of these patients are as sweet as they are considering the situation they are in.

In the time that I have worked here, It has been a decent experience, to say the least, not the worst but could've been better. When I first began, I understood there would be a lot to learn besides what I was taught in the training class, so I didn't complain for the first couple of months of working there. It was only that in the future where a lack of others in the workplace that made it difficult to get things completed and often it felt like documentation was more emphasized in priority than the care of the residents because documentation had to be completed at a certain time and because of this I saw the rushed atmosphere of getting things completed and at times it seemed residents were pushed along not literally but to get them to complete their daily activities so they can be handed off to the next person. Unfortunately, because of such, shortcuts from employees became a thing. The place has improved to ensure the accuracy of documentation and quality of care of residents while ensuring the safety of residents and employees. 
What I liked is the Nurses would always help the aides to help the residents when there was an aide shortage. In all honesty, I didn't like the corporate part of things because at the time I started there was a corporate change and access and communication between employees and corporate were difficult at times. I had to order a uniform but it ended up not to pass over during the change and I never received my uniform.  Overall, I can't say this as a professional opinion because I don't think this was a career field that suited me but from this experience, I have learned a lot about this field and now have a respect for those working in Nursing.

Will be responsible for 30-52 residents, plus aides. Frequently understaffed, so you will have to do the work of missing nurses and aides on top of that. THEN have to deal with a micro-managing, power-hungry, favorites-playing, holier-than-thou new DON who will talk down to you and accuse you of things you did not do. When you defend yourself or prove her wrong, she attempts to backtrack but it is still ultimately your fault. You will be asked to NOT chart things that did happen, chart things that DID NOT happen, hide reporting of skin issues (and other issues) in order to keep numbers competitive and then they pester you daily about covering shifts and part of shifts even if you're already in overtime or have said NO. Often get no breaks. No recognition for good work. Substandard pay. Substandard benefits. Was hired for certain shift, was forcibly moved to others without notice, then told I could not be full time if I did not do it, which would have seemed fair if they made other nurses do it, too. Promised shifts I did not get in favor or newly hired LPNs. Could not get even a few hours off for doctors appointments, while others were constantly taking vacations or days off for recreational activities, despite never calling off or being late.

Good thing is that most of the nurses get along and the day shift aides are pretty good--if they don't get burnt out and leave. ADON is easy to work with. Wish she was running the place when I was there. DON needs psych meds, a reality check and a reminder of what nurses are supposed to do for patients. But she likes her bonus checks.

Altercare pays for your STNA classes. The perks stop there. The Alliance center is so chronically understaffed, it is impossible to provide the care the residents deserve. Often times I was left in a hall with 40+ residents, all total care, all to myself. The expectations were the same, yet no efforts were ever made to get extra staff in light of call offs. You are not properly trained and put in situations like operating hoyer lifts alone because there is NOBODY available to spot you. You're expected to have everyone bathed and up by 7 when you start at 6. Depending on how many people decided to show up that day, that sometimes averages out to spending 4 minutes per resident, expecting in that time to bathe them, toilet them, dress them, hoyer lift them, etc. It is simply impossible.

You never get out on time, and often have to skip your breaks just to keep up. Which you then get punished for because they are supposedly mandatory. You're forced to make the unfortunate decision between making sure a resident isn't laying in urine or taking your break so you don't get reprimanded.

Pay is $8.50 an hour. It is pathetic and sad that you work so hard for that kind of money, where your job consists of performing daily hygiene needs and handling people's body fluids.

I once got liquid stool all over my pants (covered my entire thigh). The resident had Hepatitis C. The facility would not give me other pants to change into and I had to finish my shift with potentially infectious body fluids all over me. Not safe for me OR the other residents!!

First of all, I got a response almost immediately after applying, and was hired during my interview in October 2015. Seems a little sketchy. I didn't work here for very long and obviously the turnover rate is very high. I worked as an STNA, or a nurse aide. There were never enough aides at a time on the floor, sometimes we would have up to 16 patients at a time if there were only two of us on the post-acute care side. This is not safe whatsoever. It would leave me to try to transfer someone by myself when we actually needed at least two people to help the patient. They would only assign one nurse to each hallway, which limited how much help the nurses could offer the STNAs. Even when they weren't busy and I asked them for help (such as with turning a patient, taking them off a bedpan or helping to transfer them), I would get the response "go ask your co-workers" well newsflash, YOU ARE MY CO-WORKER! Did not feel valued there and there were many times I wanted to walk out and quit because of the stress I was put under. Pay is NOTHING compared to what the STNA's deal with. Baths are not done by certain staff simply because they refuse to do it, although there usually isn't time to do baths because of how busy you are answering call lights or passing meal trays, and then going back to the kitchen 20 times because all of the meal trays are wrong. Management doesn't really do anything to help when the nurses and STNAs are obviously drowning. Overall, I would never go back there. They need to safely staff the facility because poor care is being given with the limited staff they have.

A typical day during my shift included doing round, answering call lights, general cleanup and getting residents ready for bed. Some of the staff is very nice and there’s a couple nurses that do their jobs. Other than that it’s a very unwelcoming environment, there’s no real on the job training so once you pass the class you’re kind of just thrown to the wolves. Very very understaffed and they kept hiring people for mornings when night shift needed people. The level of uncleanliness is insane and they’ll just let the residents hoard food to the point of there being bugs. Also let the residents hoard so much that they fall over it and it makes the job harder. They don’t properly train staff on how to use equipment they just expect you to know how. You can tell they’re only open to get money, they don’t care about helping elderly or doing good. They let people continue working there after abuse and neglect allegations. Management is a joke they don’t care about the success of workers or residents. Not trying to sounds harsh but this place is an actual death trap and I hope the residents actually get quality care at some point while they’re open. I was a week out of classes and they put me on memory unit with no one else scheduled for 4 hours. I worked that hall many times by myself freshly out of classes before getting certified. If they cared about their residents and employees, that would’ve never been the case. They just do anything to stay open and cover themselves. 

It’s easy for anyone to leave a negative review when they’re disgruntled, but healthcare is not an easy field to work in. Taking care of people physically, emotionally, and mentally every single day is demanding work, and working in a nursing home is far from easy.
I’ve been with this company for many years, and I’ve seen both the good and the bad. Some of the issues people complain about are real, but a lot of the challenges come from employees not wanting to work as a team or not wanting to put in the effort this kind of work requires.
Do I agree with every decision management makes? No. But I also understand that management carries responsibilities most employees never see. At the end of the day, we work with the public and care for vulnerable people, and somewhere along the line society forgot the importance of treating others the way we would want to be treated ourselves.
As for staffing concerns, healthcare everywhere is struggling. It’s difficult to stay fully staffed when there are constant call-offs every shift. No company can force people to come to work. It still takes personal responsibility, teamwork, and a strong work ethic,  qualities that seem harder to find these days.
Despite the challenges, there are still many hardworking employees who genuinely care about the residents and do their best every day, and that deserves recognition too

Altercare of Alliance is a decent place to start your nursing career. It does not give you a whole lot of opportunities as far as exciting things to see. A typical day at Altercare is pretty stressful due to staffing issues. The work load is a lot for one nurse to handle. So far I have learned how to manage my time during my twelve hour shift, in which I am still working on. I have had the experience to work with trachs, peg tubes, PICC lines, colostomies, and many wounds. The hardest part of the job is managing my time along with the stress. It becomes pretty stressful trying to care for 20+ residents all at once. Its a constant rush trying to administer medications, do wound care, and tend to those who need me. Along with that comes the phone calls from families, trying to page the on-call physician to report an elevated blood sugar, charting on someone who fell, and trying to get someone pain medication who just can't wait two more seconds. I guess that is all part of nursing. I just feel it would be easier to do if I had 10 less residents. The most enjoyable part of the job is seeing the residents smile. The residents are what make my day, some of them anyhow. It is a great feeling knowing the resident appreciate the care I have given them. It always makes my day when a resident tells me how I am such a wonderful nurse. I know I am in the right profession, however, the nursing home setting is not for me.

I would never reccomend this place to anyone! When you first get hired, they don't tell you that your hours get cut in the kitchen at this facility when the census goes down. The turnover rate is so high because of staff being underpaid and overworked in every department. The management is very condescending and don't listen to the employees if there is an issue. I have mentioned issues to my supervisor and she did nothing about a coworker creating a hostile environment and bullying other employees. I have asked for more time to complete tasks and was refused some. Some employees would clock out to finish their job because of poor time management from the management. The training was disorganized because they would teach you the easy wrong way but will train you last minute of how to do it the right way for state. The pay is around $9 to start at in kitchen which is low compared to other nursing homes. The other issues at this facility are they will fire you if you have documents to prove if you had to call off because of a medical emergency and it is hard to get time off too. The only good thing out of this experience is cross training in different shifts and paid holiday.

I start at 10 in Activities, residents are my favorite part of the day!! Started in July and have the best supervisor and coworker. We complement each others strengths and weaknesses to give residents the best experience. I don't get a lot of hours if those in my department are healthy but otherwise I love the job still. I help all departments in different ways and try making all around me smile and have a better day. The employees throughout the facility are wonderful and care about the residents. There is advancement potential within the building, we can have input on activities on the calendar..great place to work. Still have staffing issues leading to high turnover ratio with STNA's but that is everywhere. If you enjoy working with the elderly this is a wonderful place. If you do your job they know it and are never riding you. I worked in housekeeping for a few weeks and was never rode there either. In activites it feels more like being with friends than an actual job but you do work walking the halls back and forth and helping the residents with the activities..they appreciate you and tell you that!!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Nursing assistant 25 salaries reported	$18.28 per hour
Registered practical nurse 22 salaries reported	$31.44 per hour
State tested nursing assistant 8 salaries reported	$17.13 per hour
Nurse's aide 12 salaries reported	$17.08 per hour
Licensed practical nurse 1 salary reported	$34.00 per hour

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