Nurse Conference Committee

Our nurse conference committee met this past week. We heard the construction and buildout is continuing within the hospital and asked the question whether the expanded beds will be sustained beyond the proposed end date of April 30. We were assured that the CON (Certificate of Need) expires at that time and the extended bed support is anticipated to end at that time as well. However, the infrastructure within the hospital needed improvement hence the continued construction. You should continue to see the improvements as their work continues.

Staffing

Recruitment efforts continue in a robust manner. You will likely notice an influx of nursing students and travelers working alongside you. We all know that travelers are valuable and necessary and will continue to be so. We also recognize the value of nursing students but are cognizant of the fact that a nursing student doesn’t necessarily lessen the workload as there is considerable time required to nurture, instruct and mentor these valuable future nurses and we want to encourage them in their career. Please continue to complete staffing concern forms as applicable. These are discussed at length at staffing committee, however, please connect with your staffing committee representative especially if you have observations or suggestions that would improve the working conditions in situations such as this. Your representatives are listed below.

Jodi McCabe – Co-Chair - Oncology
Wendy Kruzich - Surgical Services
Katie Owens-Chidester - Emergency
Mary Rogers and Jodi McCabe - Onc/Radiation/Gen. Surg
Kelsey Sousa - Acute Rehab
Shannon Louder - Float
Kelly Pearson - ACU / ICU / Swing

Facebook

We are super excited to announce that PeaceHealth United now has a dedicated group just for all of you United Nurses! This is a private group and is not visible to the public. This is only for you to utilize the best way you all deem the best to meet your needs of communication and to help build cohesiveness. Membership in the group is open to all WSNA nurses at United and is voluntary. This is a safe place to connect, ask questions etc. Updates may also be provided here quicker than my email updates will reach you. Currently Shawna Smith is the moderator for this group and will be working to manage membership and postings. Please watch your inbox for an invitation to join. Also, if you have a love of social media and would like to assist in moderating this group, please reach out to Shawna or any of your elected officers.

Leadership conference at Lake Chelan

Just a reminder of the leadership conference for WSNA members this April 24-26, 2022. This will be in person at Lake Chelan, and we have rooms reserved at discounted rate at Campbells resort. The lineup of speakers and topics is great so please consider attending. Also, if finances are an obstacle, please email one of your officers and inquire as to whether there are sufficient local unit funds to help offset the cost to attend and stay for the conference.

Grievances update

Currently, we have NO new grievances to report on! This is exceptionally great news as it reflects the great working relationship between all of you and leadership. Your grievance officer Kelly Pearson is available for any questions or concerns as are all your officers so do not hesitate to reach out. Our goal is to resolve everything at the lowest possible level which means we will often entertain a conversation with leadership as the very first step. Grievances do take a long time to resolve it doesn’t happen quickly and the steps are outlined in your contract.

Everyone affected by the PTO grievance win should have already received a communication from leadership about the error in processing this upgrade within the Kronos system. To be clear, the erroneous application of PTO hours was a result of programming on the back end. That should be resolved now. Likewise, the evening and night shift differentials also ran into a programming hiccup but should also be resolved and again we asked that management send out a communication about this to all nurses.

Contract and wage tables

The contract is awaiting the final signatures of the attorneys involved and has already been vetted by your officers and United leadership. The wage table is already in the hands of your officers – please contact them to review for any questions. As soon as those final signatures are obtained the entire document will be available on WSNA website and internally posted within the PeaceHealth system.