registered nurse

nursing supervisor

volunteer coordinator

home health aide

licensed practical nurse

Good Shepherd Hospice

I relocated to Houston for the DCS role a year prior to COVID and worked through the pandemic. The company offered thorough training out of their corporate office in OKC. Corporate leadership comprised of an amazing team of professionals that demonstrated a passion for Palliative Care, educating their leaders and equipping them for success. They were very supportive, especially when it was needed the most - during the pandemic. The workplace culture, as a part of leadership, was great. The culture locally was great, I had a “Dream Team” of amazing nurses, ancillary staff and the best office manager ever! Everyone always pitched in, worked together as a team and went the extra mile for one another. Our local leadership team believed in “leading from the front” so we got out in the field, saw patients, took on call, completed admissions and did everything we could to support our nurses. We focused on developing our staff and equipping them with the tools they needed for success within their positions held. Corporate was very supportive and gave us leaders the tools and resources we needed to achieve this. The best part of the job was being able to work alongside such wonderful individuals within our team - all whom had a passion for compassion and they expressed it in how they cared for our patients, and again, a stellar corporate team. The hardest part of the job was during the pandemic, losing nurses due to their rational fears of what was unfolding, FEMA contracts and other various reasons. As leaders, we filled in the gap and got in the trenches working very long hours, after hours, fulfilling our roles, case managing, taking primary on call, admitting, attending and doing whatever was required to get our patients taken care of and get the job done. It was tough but we pulled through! It’s by far the best company I’ve ever worked for and I’d return in a heartbeat! 

I am a compassionate and caring nurse, always placing my patients as priority. I respect my coworkers and work best in a team environment, doing my share of the work load. I have never worked in a position that I did not like in some way, or at least had more positive qualities, than negative. However, this position has changed my perspective on the nursing world, overall. Case loads are excessive for a hospice organization. Ive been in the field a very long time and had many nurse roles, including management and have never not been respected or felt unsupported by my superiors.  However, this position changed that perspective. The roles of nurse manager and director was managed by one individual who did not have time to manage or listen to employee concerns, encouraging a toxic work environment. She did not support her employees in any way. yearly appraisals are unheard of. Employees were discouraged from taking any time off, even being called on days off to work. Many employees have developed health issues that were work related. Long work hours, high employee turnover rate. A typical work day began at 8am and ended at 6pm, extra charting. 'on call' days were every 6 weeks, but were scheduled like a normal work day. Therefore, nurses work 6 days a week on a salary pension, not hourly or overtime. That sums up a typical work day, the negative workplace culture, management, the job is hard, undoubtedly. However, I was able to gain knowledge about hospice and had some great patients and families that i truly enjoyed. Being in the field of hospice is truly rewarding and is a specialty. It is not for every nurse. This company does not represent all hospice companies.

There are some key elements that are positive I'll start out with..  
Lieneint as far as making your own scheduled times for patient
Can expand your experience 
Good PTO accumulation 
Tuition reimbursement after a year of employment 

 Cons...
You will be doing a 2 person job 
You will break down your body quickly doing so 
You will not recieve help doing your 2 person job after asking multiple times 
You will be thrown into traveling long distances 
Say you are in Springfield MO in the morning and you return to Casseville area. Your patient in Springfield refused that morning, but changed their mind 7 hours later. You will be forced to do overtime and drive back to Springfield.
Makes family life hard 
Poor management
 Policies and procedures are not enforced to everyone so you have some people who sit in the office gossiping all day because they get very simple patients that require very little work. 
When it comes time to need their help the management will not make them do more. But if YOU feel uncomfortable doing something they might make you do it anyway. Just depends if you get in their good graces by talking about your co workers. 
If you are skilled they will absolutely take advantage of you and your skills until you are burnt out. 
The chain of command is way off and communication sucks 
So all in all they end up losing good skilled employees who could advance this company for good and keeping/favoring people who will only make their company crumble.

Wonderful people with years of experience and an awesome culture of caring for patients and their families is definitely the focus; sadly employees that are sandwiched in similar circumstances as the clients are not supported. No real surprise there, you can’t cater to the client if your employees call off frequently leaving you short handed. That is yet another area in which our government fails us.

However, management is “clickish” and freeze out the unwanted very effectively. Same story, favorites advance, some nurses have three visits daily and other have 8 or more, and workhorses are “pastured” quickly if they can no longer perform to the differing tunes chosen by management each work day.

Gsh employees are provided 5 weeks pto yearly but this is quickly used as this is your vacation and sick days, their raises stink, usually only a 1-3 percent annually. The support for employees is no longer there. Any support given is from peers not management. Their chaplains are awesome and so are their social workers.

All in all a good place to work if you go in knowing this is just like every other job, pay is average, and the perk is taking care of the client and their family knowing you made the difference to them!

I enjoyed working in the Home Health Care setting. My managers  we're absolutely phenomenal. Most coworkers we're very helpful and knowledgeable. The downside upper management has no clue as to what is really involved in the home Health Care setting. Being scheduled too many patients and try to see them all and provide adequate care sometimes seems impossible. It's unfortunate that the people in the office really need to go out and experience what it's like to travel drive go to patient's homes deal with traffic. And the families every patient's needs are different every home environment setting is different the circumstances always change.While they're trying to save money. It's the patients that suffer along with the employees .Home health aids are not compensated enough money for the work that they do in my opinion. Home health aids are the ones who spend the most time with the patients.

What is the best part of working at the company?
If being micromanaged and high school click mentally is your thing,  then you will fit right in! The turnover is horrendous! Management style is punitive not supportive! There is minimal training but, expectations are unrealistic! 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Putting up with high school antics of a few that causes a very unprofessional workplace! Gossip, lies and cruel manipulation is extremely common.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Unfortunately,  not what you would expect from a hospice company!  It is unprofessional and  I question the ethics of the executive director. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Daily team calls, weekly office meetings that were totally unproductive and paperwork galore! Healthcare should be about the patients. You spend more time with unnecessary documentation than doing the job you are hired to do.

First week was spent watching movies promoting Good Shepherd's involvement with the military. Other movies were about blood borne pathogens. Lots of introductions to other employees. 
Next couple of weeks were spent with the various nurses visiting patients in all four quadrants of the OKC area. Sat in on meetings with doctors then visited patients. Facilities are very nice and there's always food.  Department heads were extremely nice people and knowledgeable.

One lady constantly watched everyone. I was uncomfortable. She and the heads of the quadrants were constantly in meetings with each other. The "lady" seemed to be in charge.

Some attitudes toward the patients crept up within the staff. I felt awful. The nurses became paranoid when meeting with the doctor. He was a very nice man and affable.

I was put in a situation against my will that really challenged my own ethics. Because I couldn't do what I was told with a good conscience I felt that put me on the naughty list.

The compassion the staff has for each other, is like no other... this is a tough job, you are there helping with pts in their last days even hours of life.. if your just looking for a pay check this job isn’t for you !!! It takes a special breed of medical staff to do this line of work, your emotions are heighten to the fullest, your dealing with death, trying to comfort the families, then you have the sweet people that have been put in a home and forgotten about, you become their family! The staff with GS is amazing!!! They are a family willing to help when needed, always there for support. I worked there in 2003-2006
At that time we started see pediatric patients, it got to be to much for me, THATS THE ONLY REASON I LEFT!!! This company is one of the BEST!!!

As a nurse that was new to hospice,  they put me in situations that could have ruined my career. I followed a nurse a total of 2 days, then my preceptor was let go, so they threw me in there to take her place. Patient care  is not foreign to me, but dealing with a patient who is declining or actively dying is a totally different ball game. My first patient that passed, nobody came to help me or walk me through it. Important things to know would have been my role during the process,  things to say or not to say to family, and charting. Nobody ever told me what criteria makes a patient imminent, just left me to figure it out  on my own.  In my opinion,  these are critical things to know so that I can do my job accordingly and to the best of my ability. They were setting me up for failure, not success. Management is always unorganized and  biased.

Company emphasis on working as a team, most field nurses and aides do this day in and day out. When short on nurses, PCM'S rarely make visits to help out the team, they just add more onto field staff.  Place a large amount of work and demands to make sure they get paid as much as possible without allowing salaried nurses to get extra pay because it's within their "8-5" shift.  Get reprimanded or they go behind your back if you don't admit a patient (because they aren't eligible per Medicare guidelines) to get them admitted.  The culture is truly declining. More worried about putting money in managements pocket versus taking care of the employees actually doing the work and giving the patients the best care possible

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 5 salaries reported	$36.40 per hour
Nursing supervisor 5 salaries reported	$350 per day
Volunteer coordinator 4 salaries reported	$20.25 per hour
Home health aide 3 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour
Licensed practical nurse 2 salaries reported	$80.00 per day

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