Baystate Medical Center Reviews

Pros

Level 1 trauma center means you get a lot of interesting traumas. The work atmosphere is wonderful compared with other teaching hospitals I have been to. The attendings are friendly, respectful, and helpful. There is a sufficient workload to gain proficiency yet not so much that you feel overwhelmed. Additionally, this hospital is a Tufts associate meaning that you get a piece of paper with some name recognition at the end. Pay is above average. The location is about 30 minutes away from an international airport as well as within driving distance or Boston and New York. This hospital is right on the border of being in the country so you can relax when you go home.

Cons

To be honest I have no major complaints about this hospital. Some of my co-residents seem to think that this not being a large city such as New York is a drawback. Other than that, no one complains much.

Pros

My manager is good but she is handcuffed by upper management mandate to cut every penny at every opportunity regardless of broad patient safety concerns.
BMC used to be a more compassionate employee-sensitive place to work but is has become essentially a corporation looking to squeeze out profit with little concern for patient safety fallout.

Cons

Employee perks have slowly disappeared and along with that, morale. Visitors used to be able to fill out slip, recognizing our good work...get five and receive $50. That was cut. Now, visitor gets a "chance" to give BMC money in recognition of our good work.

Although BMC actually own its own very profitable insurance company, all co-pays have skyrocketed and premiums continue to rise. No matter how much money they make, it's never enough. We know when we get the letter that opens, "We value your commitment..." it's time to get ready for yet more sacrifice.

Because ti is run like a business, although it is non-profit, it persists in micromanaging how nurses work. Nursing, is, in inherently unpredictable. Treating it as assembly line work results in fragmented and short staffing and unsafe patient scenarios. This has become the norm at BMC.

We lost the ability to park on campus and must now bus in from a distant lot. We must now show up 15 early(on out time) as we often must wait until the bus is full before it departs. We are not compensated for this time. At shift's end, it is common, once again, to have to wait for the bus to arrive.

Recently, any work over 12 hours is straight time unless it happens to exceed 40-hours.
One might think having to stay beyond 12 hours in order to complete the workload might constitute a dedication worthy of overtime. Not anymore.

Finally, as part-timer, my insurance premium is about 300% more than a full timer, same coverage, same policy. I asked the CEO to rationalize this gross disparity....to paraphrase, he told me others do it so we do it.

Advice to Senior Management

Create contingency staffing plans to prevent persistent under staffing that is taking place on nursing units. Two nurses calling out sick should not create a "crisis" situation for all other staff.
Patients are regularly put at risk and morale is suffering.

Put the money into the personnel who actually do the work of caring for people.

Decide....is BMC a real hospital or a mere subsidiary of a for-profit insurance company?

Pros

Good Hospital and work environment
Hospital has good benefits

Cons

PVLSI- Research don't pay a lot and not many benefits. Forget about the bonus.

Pros

Very good when your senior leader is very good
Highly regarded hospital with top-tier patient care
HR department knows what its like to work there, really cares and tries to improve environment

Cons

Very bad when your senior leader is bad, and there's no one really to turn to about that
Pay is much lower for administrative people than at other institutions; they play with job titles and descriptions to pay you less than you deserve
Parking is a nightmare
Political environment and in-fighting make collaboration nearly impossible
Lack of strong leadership makes middle managers frustrated and impotent

Advice to Senior Management

Hire decent senior leaders. TALK to middle managers and employees. Remove the fear of retaliation. Pay fair wages--BMC is an academic medical center and should pay administrative people and managers similar salaries as Yale New Haven, Brigham & Womens, etc.

Pros

Great hours for work, collaborative work environment

Cons

I travel 50 min to work.

Advice to Senior Management

We need more areas to have a break ie another lunch room, and more facilities to use the restroom that are not used for visitors.

Pros

Great reputation for delivering care, Senior management has very good vision for the future and is supportive of our department

Cons

Fix the ER, fix parking

Advice to Senior Management

Allow for more flexibility in our benefits and parity in respect to part-timers

Pros

great employees, great atmosphere, good

Cons

area isnt the best, but great facility

Advice to Senior Management

keep up the good atmosphere

Pros

I love my manager and the staff I work with. Some of the best people I have ever worked with at a job.

Cons

There is always some kind of construction going on and chaos.

Advice to Senior Management

through away the politics and back to family values

Pros

its close the pay is good the workers patients visitors all keep me coming back to work i enjoy working for a great company

Cons

most of the people i work with are still in school or going to college they dont understand what its like to work in the real world

Advice to Senior Management

better communication they never have any metings to hear are feelings about our job we never hear anything about new hospital unless we read it in newspaper

Pros

Best/biggest hospital in region, lots of new technology and more cutting-edge stuff than other hospitals nearby. Most of the hospital is very fair and friendly with their staff - the ER is so large management is overwhelmed and attempting to militarize it.

Cons

As I said above, the ER management, who are all friends and have been in leadership for 30 years (when the ER was a very different animal) - are overwhelmed and hesitant to delegate things like scheduling. It is nearly impossible to get a day off, we are responsible for our own trades. Very poor communication with staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Follow your own advice to us - "overwhelmed" is a bad word - similar to "incompetent" in our culture. Yet when you feel "overwhelmed" by personal time requests, scheduling requests to accommodate our families or visitation schedules, you do not reorient yourselves, you do not delegate - you just return the responsibility to us. The manager is acclimated to the day shift culture and completely out of touch and at times antagonistic to evening and night shifts. Let the supervisors you hired supervise.