registered nurse

licensed practical nurse

registered nurse case manager

physical therapist

clinical technician

Inova Health System

I took a 10k pay cut to work with this company due to the fact that they really sold me on its benefits, work values, work/life balance, flexibility and that it was an overall great place to work with, wonderful department and great people.

None of it was true and I've never worked for an organization that lacked so many values that an Organization needs to run well.

The flexibility was great until upper management took over and there was nothing but micromanaging and no understanding to life outside work. If PTO was requested or personal and private matters were raised to where a day needing to be out we were almost forced to disclose the personal matters in detail, this is all while people had leave balances and even gave notices, not calling in the morning of. The pay is not competitive at all and employees in my department were working double, almost triple duties for less than half the deserved salary. The turn over rate was incredible! I had only been there for 6 months and I was one of the most tenured employee in the department! The department I was in could never be fully staffed due to someone leaving monthly if not weekly. However the worse of it all was that the own director of the department had no knowledge of how work was done or its processes and the only thing he knew how to do was point fingers as how work was not being done well, how it should be done without having any knowledge of the work, or holding employees accountable for mistakes that were not correctly being investigated with true facts before and allowing employees to be given an a chance to correct or defend mistakes by solely holding them accountable whether they made a mistake or not. The director did not even know how the ATS system when searching for items or label statuses being understood. This was the biggest shame of all. The only mistake I've ever done was take this job and for the pay cut I took, I would had preferred to work at Wal-mart where employees are treated with respect and gratitude.There was never a set policy and things changed weekly with such an unorganized process. Every week they would say things would get better it only seems to get worse. Since I've been there within the 6 months there had been over 10 people just in my department that left due to its lack of desire to be there,and still more counting! There was so much office gossip and all I ever heard daily was how much everyone hated working there or disliked the people they worked with within the department. Departments were against each other and teams were not united. No team building or support to make the place a better place to be at. A huge lack of communication was one of the bigger issues and no where to turn to for information. Everyone was pretty much on their own to fend for themselves until they messed up and it was pointed out. The place is a set up for failure however I know many employees who use to work there learned a lot in how to deal with such a difficult place to work at. If this is a department that falls under the corporate office and part of HR who is the head and model of the company i cannot imagine and am scared of the thought of how the Medical and Physician departments at Inova are handled.

Management on all levels does not support their employees; environment of blame,failure to listen to employees concerns about low staffing levels,transport system often takes over an hour to pick up/deliver pts for tests. Pts have extended stays due to inability to get diagnostic tests done,sometimes critical care pts do not get their first MRI's for 24-48 hours; high turnover in staff; administration does not fill positions when people fired/resign; no help moving critical pts from exam tables to gurneys;managers have fired employees by lying /misrepresenting employees actions because they have personality conflicts I personally know of 3 employees who were fired bacause a current manager lied about the employee;safety issues constantly a problem due to short staffing;mandatory employee satisfaction polls annually, but tell employees not to put anything derogatory on surveys; questions regarding administration concerns are directed at your immediate supervisor, when the real problems originate with the highest management; cutting costs paramount; pt care lacking; administration clueless as to what real needs of dept are;no longer have town hall meetings with employees about their concerns as they became angry sessions highlighting employees complaints about no raises, low staffing/no aids on floors or radiology depts, being asked to do the work of 2 people, no raises, no breaks...no help buttons in MRI rooms for pt emergencies; no help button planned for new magnet now under construction.?? Unable to take vacations from 9/1/12 thru Jan 2013 due to EPIC training-didnt want you to miss your training sessions.(I had 4 hours total training-this couldnt be scheduled around holiday vacations???) They just didnt care if their employees spent their holidays alone/away from loved ones. Do they think a couple days of free ice cream makes up for the total disregard for their employees welfare.The CEO sends out these long letters about his family is so important to him and that we need to all be an "INOVA family" but they freeze salary scales,strip departments down to bare bones, no unit secretaries on many units to answer phones etc. They "fix" the transport problem by reducing the amt of transporters, increasing the # of "managers" in transport and wonder why transport times are still over 1 hour; yet it's the radiology dept's fault for not getting pts done quickly and it goes down as being unproductive time, hence we don't need more staff;clueless! Staff is among the best, try to do their job despite the conditions, much opportunity to learn as we get such a wide range of trauma as well as medical cases; excellent radiologists/medical staff although too much responsibility for care placed on "hospitalists" who direct a pt's care yet no nothing about the patients; they tend to order every test in the book whether necessary or not to CYA.

Please see experience summary in which this information is covered.
I loved most of my employment at Inova Fairfax Hospital, which was over 18 years. I was an experienced RN at the time I joined Inova Fairfax Hospital, with extensive experience as a medical surgical nurse with large knowledge base and adaptability and accountability. My vocation has always been for behavioral health nursing, I trained at Payne Whitney Clinic, worked on staff on the metabolic research unit and adolescent borderline units. Later I worked as staff nurse and then nursing coordinator at Psychiatric Institute in NYC. I yearned to master nursing competency and excellence in other areas, including but not limited to routine med-surg, oncology, and obstetrical nursing. I studied REBT , and had a small counseling practice for 4 years collaborating with a psychiatrist and LCSW. I moved to VA from NY in 1989, and joined the staff pool working full time at Inova Fairfax Hospital in the summer of 1990. The Nursing Coordinator of the Cardiac Telemetry Unit asked me to join their staff, which I did after about 3 months on the pool. I worked on the CTU and developed skills with pre and post surgical open heart surgery and heart transplant patients, as well as medical and cardiac patients on cardiac telemetry. I developed competency in this very demanding area and received good reviews. In 1993 I decided that I would prefer to return to psychiatric nursing, and was employed on Psychiatry 4 Main in the fall of 1993. I was held in high regard, received good reviews, became a Geriatric Resource Nurse, engaged wholeheartedly in the Caritas initiatives, and was a member of the Ethics Committee. I was named Nurse Educator of the year in 2003 . I have an enormous love of psychiatric nursing and have highly developed skills and body of knowledge. In 1998 I completed my MSW from VCU, and applied the knowledge and skills from this study to my practice as clinical nurse. In 2006 I was accepted as a staff nurse at the Partial Hospitalization Program, which at that time was on the same floor as the inpatient hospitalization service. Over time I became the staff member doing the most groups per day and week; I love doing groups and have a high level of proficiency, having studied at Payne Whitney Clinic, Psychiatric Institute, 4 Main , and social work school, including internships as well as course work. 
I have advanced skills in patient assessment and intervention in person and by telephone, crisis intervention, working with families, interfacing with insurance companies and other agencies,  computer documentation, as well as team work, independent functioning, and accountability to agency and governmental policies.

Inova says a lot of the right things, their policies sounded great but their management and lack of leadership is awful.  The policies aren't upheld.  

They have a lot of integrity issues with staff lying, helping their click out to get the schedule a certain way for some and not for others.... people that can call out regularly and not get in trouble meanwhile others are written up.... they write you up even with a doctors note where you have no voice and are hacking up a lung, sick but you shouldn't call out!  Now you have nurses coming to work sick and getting everyone else sick because everyone is scared to use their PTO to call out.  Nurses that have a death in their family but they aren't allowed PTO without 6 weeks notice so they write you up for calling out or force you to work and miss your own family's funeral.  You have nurses sitting around on their cell phones throughout the shift, and then the clin techs won't help unless it is a patient they were assigned for that shift (even if they are just sitting on the internet shopping they won't help with another patient).  

Probably like most places they are consistently understaffed to the point that you will have 5-6 patients regularly and many times you do not have clinical techs to assist so it is quite heavy.  Not only do you have a heavy patient load but you will find yourself working with charge nurses with 1 year total RN experience, and be surrounded by one experienced nurse and the rest all new grads.  The work environment is downright unsafe.

You can self schedule but yet they constantly move around what you schedule for yourself.  Although I understand some times that is a necessity to properly and safely staff a unit this is regularly done and when they do move your days you end up with six, 12 hour days in a row. Meanwhile other RN's have 6-8 days off between their shifts, so you have to wonder how they thought that would be the safest way to shift the schedule. 

Although Inova is good about letting you move up the clinical ladder, there is no limit to the number of RN3 or RN4 nurses they can have.... there is a lack of recognition for hard work and skill sets.  Raises are minimal and the pay is the lowest out of the DMV area.  There seems to be a lot of clicks and favoritism.  This wouldn't be the place to work if you are a hard worker that just wants recognition for that strong work ethic.  Management is just worried about numbers and not the people.

Maybe the culture varies from unit to unit but I consistently hear similar complaints from other nurses including float and travel nurses that have experienced various units.

Mine is more personal I haven’t been with the company that long but they have really showed them their selves as being supportive in every way it was hard for me to adjust and that’s just because so many things in my personal life I carried on my back and I was ashamed to tell anyone after a while of getting to know I nova and how they work they are like a family just like every other family and Any family you have your ups and downs but if you don’t share or speak up they won’t know how to help you I encourage you anyone that decides to come to this company just be upfront and open with your situation they will find a way to adjust and help you so you will be successful and useful to the company so you don’t fall between the cracks and feel left behind right now I’m in North Carolina with my family after all these years after expressing to HR in some of my charge nurses I work in mental health unit there in Alexandria Virginia they have helped me a lot in my journey I’m home now visiting my family my mother that I haven’t seen in a long time things have changed after Covid and I am so grateful that my job back to me 100% on this journey it help me mentally physically I can now come back to work with a clear mind now and I have more love to show towards my coworkers and staffAnd the patients now more than ever I am very appreciative of what they have given me they have been very understanding and I’ll be in my Journey I’m not sure if we are allowed to give names of people who work on our job but I just want them to know if they ever read this I think them with all my heart I work at Alexandria mental health unit not only do they help those who need special needs in different areas of their life but they also help your staff mentally because we all need some kind of help so we can help others and continue to grow together as a family as a unit we all have life-changing events some of us have lost a lot of love ones over this time them to Covid which is natural causes but I’m happy that my team my unit and HRHas something to do with me finally having his last chance listening into my real adulthood of life events I am ready to come home and hit the pavement with a smile on my face in a song in my heart that’s my motto in my gift to give back to I nova healthcare

Some good things and some bad. There is job security as long as you want to be a bedside nurse forever, but who aspires to that?! I was encouraged to get a certification (looks good on paper for them) then as soon as magnet status was achieved, there was no more support to renew or obtain continuing education. They also want all nurses to have a BSN, another thing that looks good on paper for them but has nothing to do with actual quality of nurses.  Some of the best nurses I know are diploma and ADN nurses and some of the scariest are BSNs.  The idea of "looking good" is more important to the organization than actually being good. Sadly, this is probably not unique to big hospital systems.

The overall experience can be very different from unit to unit and facility to facility. If you are lucky enough to work on a unit where the leader is supportive and advocates for the staff, then it will be a good experience. Unfortunately, management generally is against this and your good leader will not last more than a few years. 

The catchphrase "One Inova" is a lie.  I worked at two different Inova facilities and things were very different between the two. Also they care more about money than patients and most decisions reflect this, especially considering that the leaders are out of touch with clinical care. If you are a nurse leader who hasn't actually done clinical care in five years, sorry but you are clueless.  Things change and you may think you know a good idea when you dream one up, but chances are you will be wrong unless you actually accept feedback from those in the trenches.

Bottom line, it is a good place to get some experience before moving on.  Even if you stay within Inova, move around and seek out other opportunities. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The team on the construction side is collaborative and experienced , people are generally willing to share knowledge and help you figure out how things work within a large health system. Working on a hospital build means the stakes feel real; you're not pushing paper for its own sake, and that gives the work some genuine meaning. Inova's size also means you're exposed to complex, high-value projects that you wouldn't see at a smaller organization.


What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Hospital construction projects are inherently high-pressure, tight timelines, a lot of stakeholders, and a lot of moving parts across contractors, designers, and internal teams like engineering and clinical ops. The pace is fast and the margin for error is low

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Like most large health systems, there's a lot of institutional politics and departmental silos although the culture within our team is great and very collaborative. Building relationships across teams takes time and patience, and it's not always clear who the right stakeholders are. The culture rewards people who know how to navigate the organization, which takes longer than four months to fully figure out

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Most days involve a mix of contractor coordination, RFI and submittal tracking, owner-architect-contractor meetings, and walking the site. A significant portion of time goes toward internal Inova stakeholder communication , keeping clinical and facilities teams informed and managing expectations. No two days are identical, which keeps it interesting, but it also means you need to be comfortable with constant context-switching

3 OB is poorly managed with lots of busy work (unnecessary duties assigned to RNs- such as secretarial work in the nursery, RNs must empty the nursery trash and dirty linens, 1:24 RN/newborn ratio in the nursery without a tech or charge nurse to help the majority of the time! One RN to attend to transitioning several newborns at once, while crying babies are left unattended.) Techs are not as helpful as they could be (whether on the floor or in the nursery), nor are they receptive to direction. Management sets a bad example and does not support RNs. There is a fairly high staff (RN) turnover. The techs stay because they love their easy shifts and lack of enforcement by management to improve working conditions for RNs. Techs could be assigned so many more duties (paperwork in nsy, putting nsy charts together, helping with PKUs and NB VS, changing diapers, attending to changing and comforting infants, filling water pitchers more than once a shift...likewise, the secretary could also help with some of these duties. Even filing VS in infant charts at 6am would have helped, but NO- you're on your own). I am sorry I stayed as long as I did. In spite of numerous complaints and suggestions to management, NOTHING changed in the 7 years I was there. What I most enjoyed was my interaction with the patients and proximity to my home. Think twice before working here. I can't tell you how many wonderful RNs we lost due to the poor working conditions (sadly, the majority did not disclose their true reasons for leaving, as they were afraid to burn bridges).

The Fairfax location has 900+ beds, and APPs are overworked. MCCS physicians expect APPs to be at their side continuously throughout a work day; it's an unhealthy co-dependent relationship. What did MDs/DOs do when APPs weren't readily available? There's a tremendous amount of MCCS APP gossip and "tattle-telling." You'll have a target on your back if you do not conform to the MCCS way. Not all physicians are pleasant to work with; a handful are stellar, noteworthy, and make your day shine. Despite Inova hosting many health profession students, many MCCS physicians do not teach and demonstrate their self-adulating personality and superiority when one doesn't know the information. Some physicians start rounds withOUT pre-rounding just to get to the "physician lounge" at peak lunchtime hour. The APPs follow like little lambs, like middle and high school kids rush to the cafeteria. Multiple MCCS APPs are heavily and personally involved with APP "leadership" and the MCCS physicians outside of work. Because Inova hires MCCS RNs into APP positions, the inbred culture is perpetuated, and most MCCS APPs are "within" hires. APP schedules are terrible; there is one individual that produces the schedule. That scheduling individual will work on the schedule during a shift and discuss APP requests with other APPs working that day. At any time, schedules will be made 6-months in advance. Early on, the APP "leader" discussed with other APPs that "self-scheduling" is an unfavorable scheduling method when many RNs successfully self-schedule. MCCS APPs will be shifted between neuro, cardiac, and stepdown units without preference or length of time spent in a particular setting/unit. 

My day begins by printing my list of patients to visit and review their insurance benefits. I collect all of the paperwork needed for each patient and then begin to travel the hospital going to all departments. I review their expected patient liability and then collect their copay's, deductible and co-insurances or out of pocket estimates.
The most difficult part of this process is that I have to continually see patients that have serious medical conditions and at times they do not want to be bothered with their benefits. However, I look at it as a chance to provide them with a valuable service so they can have an idea as to what to expect in terms of patient financial liability and I get to thoroughly explain how their insurance plan will be billed. I also set up their financial arrangements as patients have different circumstances surrounding their ability to take care of their expected out of pocket expenses.
What I find to be the most enjoyable aspect of my work is that I get to interact and have conversations with the patients. Also, a part of me feels like I have really helped or had a positive affect on a patients hospital experience. Whether it be through setting up financial arrangements or just listening to the patients as some of them never receive any type of visitor or even family members.
As a result, I have learned a lot. Such as how to manage my workflow, conflict, and being more compassionate in relation to the patient experience. Many patients are in circumstances they have had no control over so expressing genuine care and concern for them is a skill that I have developed even more.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 80 salaries reported	$46.16 per hour
Licensed practical nurse 7 salaries reported	$33.53 per hour
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Physical therapist 21 salaries reported	$103,419 per year
Clinical technician 22 salaries reported	$20.83 per hour

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