registered nurse

patient care technician

clinical nurse coordinator

registered nurse - medical / surgical

registered nurse - icu

HCA HealthONE Swedish

I worked at Swedish Medical Center for 4.5 years as an RN, BSN. The strongest aspect of the job was the bedside staff themselves. Nurses, CNAs, and direct unit leadership consistently worked hard to support both patients and one another through extremely demanding conditions.

During my time there, staffing instability and increasing patient acuity significantly affected the work environment. Units frequently received patients whose care needs exceeded the traditional scope or staffing model of the floor, while staffing ratios continued to increase across nursing roles. Changes that were initially communicated as temporary became ongoing practice.

The RN/LPN partnership model created particularly difficult workloads for many RNs, who remained responsible for higher-level assessments, documentation, and clinical tasks while carrying expanded patient assignments. CNAs were also routinely assigned very high patient volumes with significant care needs. As a result, burnout and turnover became widespread among experienced staff.

Workplace violence toward healthcare workers also became increasingly common. Staff regularly managed verbal threats, physical aggression, and emotionally traumatic situations while continuing to provide patient care under significant time and staffing pressures. Many employees felt there was insufficient operational and emotional support following high-acuity events.

Despite these challenges, bedside teams consistently demonstrated exceptional teamwork, resilience, and commitment to patient care. The clinical experience gained here was substantial, but the long-term sustainability of the working environment became difficult for many staff members.

I’ve been with Swedish the past year. It’s been pretty awful minus the other nurses going through the same thing. We help each other like a family but even that is not enough to get us to stay. The pay is SO bad. I am not a picking pay nurse, but with cost of living so high here, I feel I could make more at the drive through. There is little room for advancement. They talk a big game about how you’ll be able to move up easily, but the reality is that directors are terrified of losing staff and will say anything to stop you from moving forward for their personal benefit. It is NEVER staffed. And the higher ups do the typically “well buy you pizza” as a sorry. Doesn’t cut it & doesn’t make anyone like Swedish better. The CNAs are rarely hired and if they are we are constantly asked to send them home just to save budget. Even though we work short every. Single. Night. And budget must be doing great since that’s the case. The whole company is a bit of a joke and I can’t believe the reviews or accomplishments it has made. I can definitely say it has to be the nurses and their ability to care and be resilient through unjust circumstances. Anyways, if you’re a new grad looking for experience, not a bad place to start For a year or maybe less than that because they do hire a ton of new grads. JUST DONT SIGN A CONTRACT!! & DONT DO STAR RN. I have not talked to one nurse that has done the program and thought it was useful & all it does is tie you into a 2 year commitment with Swedish so they can continue paying you terribly. 

Good luck! Hope this helps !

I'm responsible for the whole PHO which means I would focus on physician contracting, credentialing, marketing, customer service, vendor relations, and setting up educational programs for practice office managers and physicians. Other days I visit practices to go over their health insurance audits and introduce them to a new vendor. 
I'm managed by the PHO board of directors with a dotted line to Swedish's Physician Relations Vice President who are all pleased with my work. My co-workers are other HealthOne PHO administrators located at other hospitals. While we are a team with corresponding goals, we operate our PHOs as primarily silo-ed operations. 
The most challenging part of the job is marketing the PHO to practices around town. I've learned so much about branding, sales, and closing the deal. I learned physicians, especially primary care, are struggling financially and I've helped so many of them with better contracting and discounted vendor programs. I also love educating them on such topics as the Affordable Care Act and patient centered medical home programs.

The only reason I stayed at Swedish for 4 years was because of the people (my direct coworkers)
Although there are some great managers in various departments, the overall culture at Swedish is very reflective of HCA. 

HCA is a for profit corporation that is traded on Wall-Street. Due to this, they make decisions to maximize share-holder value. What do I mean by this? As a nurse, your nurse-to-patient ratio is always adjusted (for the worse). CNA's and techs were cut from certain floors, causing total care to be assumed by the RN's. Charge nurses on Med/Surg floors normally have to take 4 patients. 

In all honesty, you're going to see a lot of this culture, and hospital related management problems at other hospitals but Swedish is unique in the way that management is very political. Managers and directors have back stabbed each other to get promoted to a higher position. The hospital is very large, making it difficult for Swedish to find a true culture and identity. 

Yes, you get good benefits but you can find these benefits at other (non-HCA) facilities and have more help on the job. 

I've heard that it's not a good place to start out as far as salary, but if you're an experienced nurse you have the opportunity to get a good raise(if you do the extra credit). Be prepared to bargain for your initial salary. They are usually understaffed and have what I feel are unreasonable expectations. If someone calls in, everyone just gets an extra patient. Over five years I'd only seen two agency nurses! On average nurses have 5-6 patients at night with no tech. 4/5 of those patients will be total care! Lot's of micromanaging! Even if you're on day shift with 5 patients and no tech- you will get written up if there are any med errors, dressings not changed, hourly rounding not charted, you have overtime, or you don't clock out for lunch for the full thirty minutes. The good parts: not religious, benefits for same sex couples, 90% of managers hired from within, raises, good team-work, when there is a problem it is actually dealt with within a week( as long as it doesn't involve hiring more staff).

I support of the Director of Education, eight Clinical Educators and the daily operations of the Clinical Education Department as well as all aspects of over 154 classes/courses daily, including annual.  This includes class planning, building the course in the Healthcare Learning System (HLS)-HealthStream, all class registration and administrative support of the class daily schedule flow.  I am one of the two HLS HealthStream Administrators for the facility and teach a “HealthSteam Administrator Overview” course quarterly.   I am responsible for the department’s payroll processing using the KRONOS system.  I also, support of the Licensed/Unlicensed new hire orientation.  I maintain several data bases. Orientated department new hires on department attendance procedures and the use of applications used by the organization.  (Please see attached resume for more detail)

Considering other job opportunities due to the possible decentralization of the Clinical Education Department and hoping to advance my career.  My Director is aware I am considering other opportunities.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The nurses I worked with were awesome. The management staff were supportive and consistently made improvements. My compensation package and insurance was one of the BEST in my entire career.  I was treated as a valued employee. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The location and parking situation/cost. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Supportive and wonderful group of people.  

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I worked in the out patient infusion setting. Patients would come and go. Some treatments were 15 minutes and some were 8 hours. We would usually have 2-4 patients seated per nurse.  There was significant autonomy in determining how many patients we took at one time depending on the complexity of each treatment.  We consistently were sent to lunch and breaks which was wonderful compared to other states I have worked in.

This is a great place, overall. The culture is positive (usually) and many of the employees here are very engaged and committed to the vision here. 
It's always fun, fast paced, and interesting day-to-day here. 

To elaborate on the cons, this is more so toward the leadership aspect. 

Many times people promoted are not entirely deserving, and those with many accomplishments and skill sets are overlooked. It seems to be a culture of who you know. Also, there are conniving and conspiring behaviors behind the scenes (plans to move people out that are not moving the numbers enough) without true development or mentoring actions. Instead, it's more so, let's figure out how to get rid of a leader because they aren't producing enough without a solid attempt to coach that person.

Go into work get report from the night techs about the patients we are taking care of that day, give baths, help them order breakfast, give them clean linen on their beds. Sit them up in a chair if possible. The evironment I worked around was cool and fun, lots of joking around. We worked together as a team for the most part and helped eachother out when needed. The part that made me feel I accomplished what I was supposed to that day was taking care of my patients and making them feel happy and joke with them and get to know their families as if they were mine. Work also would give me a reality check about life, that I didn't have it so bad afterall and that the little things that I complained about were nothing compared to what my patients were going through. Some of them will never walk again or talk again.

I was excited to start an externship rotation here, but was very surprised at how the staff conducted themselves. There was a lot of discontent among the workers and it permeated everything. I didn't learn as much here as I hoped. It seems this facility hires very young radiologist technologists who get the job done, but I think it would have made a difference had it been a mix of young and old. I'm not sure what the cure would be for the Imaging department, but it needs a dose of positive, uplifting energy whether that be in the form of better pay, or treatment; I don't know. I enjoyed the diverse patients and varied exams. Craig Hospital transporters (next door to Swedish) are the most awesome people you will ever meet in the medical field in Denver.

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