Employee/family tuition program (50% courses). Physicians and caregivers that truly want to help the community. A few competent managers that know what they are doing and allow employees to thrive.

Cons

Low pay across the board - long term faculty sometimes earn less than their new colleagues. No merit pay. The most recent raise was 3%, which covered the increase in insurance costs. The raise before that was 2-3 years prior, which also covered the increase in insurance costs. PTO is required for closures - including hurricanes and icy roads. The benefits for healthcare workers are very different than on-campus employees (who are paid for extreme weather days off). Even for employees, it is difficult to get appointments within the system. Specialties are not well represented in all departments. In a system this big, hospital employees should have an in-house urgent care. Incompetence is tolerated because the paperwork required to dismiss employees is significant - departments suffer intensely because of a cost-sunk fallacy with incompetent department chairs, rude nursing staff, and lazy clerks/office workers/staff. Annual evaluations are pointless because again, there is no merit pay for hard work and no consequences for poor performance and bad behavior.

Advice to Management

Take a hint from UAB and institute online patient reviews - for everyone - then make employees accountable. Hire an established healthcare consultant to fix whatever is going on at MCI. Upgrade patient rooms at the Medical Center - they are super depressing. Advocate more for residents and at least pay them as much as UAB. Residents should have either 24 hour free meals or monthly stipends for meals, especially since they are delivering the majority of patient care. They should be reimbursed for taxis after 24 hour call. Remove the bloated administrative salaries in HR and elsewhere. Austerity cuts for all administrators since some of them make 3 times more than an MD. Hire administrators that actually worked in an educational hospital system. COM needs to be closer to hospitals since this is a teaching hospital - and not in 10-20 years. Institute an employee health mandate - how can USA claim to "transform medicine" when so many of healthcare staff are obese or morbidly obese? Reimbursement is a joke and takes way longer than it should - why is it still on paper? Why are reimbursement rules different for Health and campus? Health has to have a paper receipt and cc statement, but campus can use an app? Seriously? Reduce the wasteful spending on marketing - the website still doesn't work well and so much seems to be focused on retirement parties. Faculty and resident recruitment is a joke. Prospective faculty are shuffled all over town for interviews. Future residents think 80% of our programs are undesirable. Rehab the marketing department: billboards won't make people come to USA when they receive substandard treatment (just ask an employee how their visit to the ER was or how long they had to wait in clinic or how rude the front desk staff was). Medical alumni currently do not donate even though they could... because they know it will be wasted on bloat and not spent on things that matter: increasing staff in clinics and on floors, allowing MDs to provide care, teach, learn at conferences, but not spend hours on a wonky EMR or in meetings where very little is accomplished. There are so many wonderful medical providers here, but they are not treated well enough to stay. How many of our MDs sign a 3 year contract, then leave? No incentives for staff, either via pay or advancement. It's no wonder USA is in 4th place among the other hospitals in Mobile. Quality patient care will change USA hospital's reputation - and you get that with competitive salaries, employee accountability, and streamlined policies that are enforced across the board. It can be done with the right people in charge.

PTO is required for closures

September 24, 2019

See answer

September 2, 2019