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 cor
Prossome nice people to work with
Conspay, flexibility, disorganized, high turn over rate, over worked, under appreciated, supportive higher management, lack of knowledgable directors
CEO's got their million bonus while employees raises dependent on whether Inova reaches their financial goals
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
Prosabiliity to transfer to many other facilities in the area
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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
Prosopportunity to provide excellent patient care, many learning and teaching opportunities, high salary with excellent benefits
Conswas terminated in a very hurtful and undeserved manner, and subsequently vindicated by the VEC.
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. T
Good place to learn and many good co-workers, but leaders and HR are out of touch
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 drea
ProsMany great co-workers, night shift helps you avoid nonsense
ConsLower pay than most other systems in the area, management
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 the
Prosinspiring hospital orientation. close to my home. accommodating schedules.
Consnegative, unsupportive unit for rns, heavy workload, exceptionally poor management.
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 circums
Large and unorganized with no real leadership, often short staffed, managers with no experience, nepotism, no accountability
I worked in the pharmacy department for 15 years. It was a large unorganized department with strong leadership. The people put in charge were in title only, they had no real authority to make the employees accountable for completing their job. New graduates with no leadership qualities or traing were put in management positions just to fill a slot. The pharmacy often worked short staffed while the pharmacist was given more time consuming clinical tasks to accomplish along with their regular duties. Nepotism was rampant. They had their favorites with no doubt to the employees. One pharmacist was allowed to work full-time remotely from China while another pharmacist who had severe disabilities but could have gone from part-time back to full-time if she had been granted the opportunity to work from her Stafford, Va home. Schedule changed by people who didn't work staff so that it was impossible for some employees to work the mandated shifts. No control over work shifts. No management available on evening, weekend or holiday shifts.
Management could not navigate epic.
Policies and procedures not followed equally by all pharmacists.
ProsLearning opportunities, Some pharmacists were excellent mentors who were always ready to help.
ConsUnorganized, No accountability, No control over schedule, Often short staffed with no replacement, Wide variety of patient to potentially become involved with Increased clinical duties, Workload unevenly distributed, Lack of communication.
When I originally started working with INOVA, I really enjoyed my job. You have the opportunity to learn a lot seeing as it's a teaching facility and a Trauma 1 Center in Northern Virginia/DC area. It can get busy at times depending on where you are unit wise and what position you are in. There are times I feel like I am back in high school with the amount of drama that occurs but I unfortunately feel that's almost in every job nowadays (personal opinion). They have been flexible with employees who are going to school on schedules so that's helpful. There are times I feel like management lets certain things slide as others don't. There are a lot of people who I enjoy working with while other I just am there to do my job and make sure the patients are taken care of appropriately. The hardest part of the job is time management seeing as they require Tech's to do a lot and depending on who you're working with you're doing more. There have been a lot of times that we are short on the floor and they still expect Techs to step up and take the majority of the load. (I am not dogging nurses, I know they have a lot of their plate as well; charting, plan of cares, assessments, medication administration, etc) The most enjoyable part of the job is also who you are working with because depends who's there can really set the mood for the shift. I also enjoy that while being a Tech you have the opportunity to do blood draws, start IV's, foley catheters, and just building a relatio
Busy office, short breaks, unfriendly staff, and unprofessional manager.
I worked in the primary care setting. The manager was awful not to mention her sidekick nurse. Both the manager and nurse were guaranteed positions prior to an agreement to sell the practice to INOVA. The patient care has gone down the drain because INOVA is more concerned with dollar signs than patient care. The majority of the doctors are new and lack the necessary knowledge to provide proper patient care. Nothing is done in a timely manner including refills whether urgent or not, they are done when they feel like it. It is more like babysitting doctors and constantly reminding them to address even important matters like anti-coagulation patients which are time sensitive. No one takes responsibility for their errors instead they just blame their errors on whatever nurse they want to get rid of and believe me they will find a way to get rid of you if they don't like you. Most of the nursing staff and lab tech are unprofessional not to mention just plain trashy. The training poor and no help when asked as a matter a fact no one says anything until it is too late. Forget about upper management i.e. area directors, HR, or even the clinical director for the area because they are no help. Can't believe I wasted so much time there. Keep your eye out for the help wanted ads, there are so many because the turn over rate is very high so they always need help. I would really think twice before applying for any primary care offices.
ProsGood benefits
Consshort breaks, hours increase at any give time, poor training on site, poor management as well as HR
Questions And Answers about Inova Health System
How often do you get a raise at Inova Health System?
Asked Feb 13, 2021
Once a year
Answered Jun 5, 2023
At least yearly
Answered May 31, 2023
What is the best part of working at the company?
Asked Sep 26, 2020
The pay
Answered Jul 4, 2022
Pay
Answered Jun 25, 2022
How are the working hours at Inova Health System?
Asked Jun 29, 2016
Schedule is flexible for everyone, you start at 6:30, 7...I love that flexibility at Telestar Court, and Monday to Friday.
Answered Jun 6, 2019
The working hours are 72-80 hours per pay check period. It is flexible but you have to work it out with the unit administrator.
Answered Feb 9, 2018
What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Asked Sep 28, 2016
The turnover at every level is atrocious. There is little communication between support offices. Culture is, and has been, quite bad across the board. Every time there is a “regime change” a good number of projects will be scrapped and different priorities enacted.
Inova is a very large, very expensive barge without a captain who thinks that it is a luxury yacht. They are executive heavy with a generous bonus system for management. They do not provide routine cost of living raises that keep up with the economy. They launch programs such as “merit increase based rewards” without having a system in place to accurately measure employee performance. They don’t even have an accurate catalogue of job descriptions.
This place is a hot mess that continues to reward their top echelon without making any sustained progress on improving employee satisfaction.
Answered Sep 29, 2019
It depends on the unit, sometimes your unit can get very heavy and you’ll be running around to get everything that is timed
Answered Aug 10, 2019
What is the interview process like at Inova Health System?
Asked Sep 5, 2016
Very friendly with director. I have been already welcomed to the new team.
Answered Feb 8, 2022
For MA position I talked to a recruiter who asked me basic screening questions, then the hiring manager who asked me typical interview questions like what is your weakness, strengths, how do you work in a team etc, then interviewed with the doctor at the site who asked me what I would do in certain scenarios. Heard back in 4 days after interview, no follow up email except from recruiter who gave me an offer letter
