Catholic Health Initiatives Reviews

Pros

Core values, flexible work hours

Cons

low pay, lack of advancement

Pros

When I interviewed and first went to work here, I thought it would be long term. There are a few nice people to work with and the pto was decent.

Cons

High turnover leaves few experts.
Management can be two faced and in it only for what they can get.
CHI seems to appoint incompetent narcissistic people to senior positions. This can make your life a living nightmare.
There does not seem to be any direction filtering down.

Advice to Senior Management

First you should become aware that there is a problem and keep in mind that the tone of business starts at the top.

Pros

Faith based organization, with excellent clinicians. The palliative care program helps patients achieve comfort and helps them make difficult decisions.

Cons

Leadership demonstrate lack of caring for clinicians. Expectations of salaried workers are extreme, with 60-80 hour work weeks the norm.

Advice to Senior Management

Get staffing right, so that excellent patient care can be provided, without clinicians having to give up their own personal lives to make it happen.

Pros

CHI has some significant capital it plans to burn through over the next several years for clinical projects. If you need to expand your health care resume, this may be the place to do it.

Cons

Once you get hired on, you will be slotted into a position for life. There is no hope for advancement. Those above you will use every dirty trick in the book to hide their incompetence and pin the blame on you.

Advice to Senior Management

The employees know that the best way to advance their careers is to become a contractor. As a result, the bureaucracy that remains is slowing your company to a crawl because they are so incredibly dissatisfied.

Pros

Good IT staff poor management

Cons

No advancement, low pay, lousy management

Advice to Senior Management

Stop protecting your job and do what is best for the company and it's workers.

Pros

Experience and fairly current in what's happening, leading initiatives in healthcare

Cons

Juvenile approach to "perks" - like "Jean's Fridays" in summer with a reminder email from some clerk on what are acceptable jeans. Very "catholic school" mentality of control because employees don't have enough common sense evidently.
Work your butt off and get comments in meetings like "your work is valued and we appreciate what you do", BUT it makes good money for the NON-PROFIT and you will never be compensated for your efforts. Very poor compensation structure.
If you have a "management champion" you can get hired into a position which you have absolutely no qualifications for.
Unrealistic deliverable dates set by management who has no experience in IT. Crank it out. Fix later. All so the annual project plan shows lots of green lines. Employees who do the work have little say in how much time it would take to do a decent job.
Turnover high. Management openly acknowledges in this kind of work people only stay 2-3 years. Not true - many would stay longer if they got compensated for the work and had some input into deliverables and expectations.

Advice to Senior Management

Get some experience in the area you are managing or, in the alternative, if you truly believe you have good team members which you hired, let them have input into project expectations. It would also help if management lacking education in the area they managed would get formal education related to the subject and use the company's education reimbursement.
RICE (Reverence Integrity Compassion Excellence) goes for management too, not just for employees.
HR is gutless! Don't go to them if you have problems/issues. They are the "corporate cops" but they are patsies.

Pros

Catholic Health Initiatives offers employment opportunities.
Work / life balance
Work load is very reasonable.

Cons

Management is a real problem at this particular facility. Early in 2011 a postcard was sent out to members of the union that encouraged support for co-workers because there was a surge in reports of employees who were being given unreasonable and overly punitive treatment. It seems that the facility in Tacoma is developing the distinction of not treating its employees properly. That message in the postcard did not seem to be effective in preventing subsequent reprehensible actions on the part of management.
If electing to work here, make sure you have a back up plan (second job).
Backstabbing is a big problem in certain areas at the facility.

Advice to Senior Management

Do not tolerate backstabbing. Avoid double standards. Be honest. Be fair. Ensure feedback on performance. Recognize you are human and subject to misinterpreting what you see and hear. Ask for feedback from all those in your charge and respect it - even if it isn't coming from a favorite. Learn to apologize. Recognize that you have biases and emotions that affect rational thought. Learn to step back and not make any significant decisions when your emotions are not in check. Perhaps most importantly, have the courage to admit mistakes. Lying to cover up only causes bigger problems down the road. One of these bigger problems is the manager setting a standard of behavior that promotes lies and punishment of those who are honest.

Pros

Mission and Value are a leading focus of leadership

Cons

Non Profit orgianizations bring thier own challanges

Pros

Slackers can do just fine.
Good foot in the door to health care if you plan to move on.

Cons

Do not think your going to get ahead busting your behind with this company. They just use you and burn you.
HealthCare plan is below par.
IT is out of contraol no one is watcching these people spend the company out of business.
If you use your PTO it's almost like punishment when you return to work bcause you will now be so far behind you need to work twice as hard. so you end up not taking time off.
They talk all kinds of nice good stuff but actually don't walk the talk.
The bottom line -they are there to make bucks everything else they say is just noise they don't follow the touchy feely stuff they peddle.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean house -IT EPMO is going to break the bank you need to get a grip and find someone who is open with you and not interested in building a kingdom around IT EPMO. Take a step back and look at what your doing

Pros

good working environment and benefits

Cons

there are limited opportunities for advancement