Epsteinlarue,

Check your email for the phone number of Quality Management at PMC.

Few topics around Bannock County promote as much passionate response as the Portneuf Medcal Center.

See:

What has been Wrong with Portneuf Medical Center: A View from the Inside

I think you can call the hospital at   239-1000, and ask to be transferred to the office of quality management. I didn't read your last response until quite late or I would have called and asked for permission to give you a name and number. I will do that tomorrow and get back to you.

I looked and couldn't find any contact information the the Quality Managment team in either the "Contact Us" tab or the "Qualty Managment" tab, that is why I offered to have them contact me and published my email address here.

I knew that I should have paid more attention in government class... 

Let me see if I have this right. You have some information that you think the PMC board  ought to know, before making a decision about a company they are considering partnering with, but you want them to contact you instead of you contacting them?

How important is this information and whose responsibility do you think it is to get that information to the right people before they have to make a decision? As a government   teacher once asked me, "Think about it and let me know what you decide"?

She quite often  challenged me by asking me to think things through and tell her what I had decided, before giving me her view. 

California nursing ratio's went to effect in January 2005, AND in 2005, they sold the one hospital (Palo Verde) and moved the other across the border (Valley View) and then sold the original, Colorado River hospital...  What a coincidence!!!

From the Valley View website:  Opened in November 2005, Valley View Medical Center is a 102,000-square-foot acute-care facility in Fort Mohave, Arizona.

From the Palo Verde website:  On December 31, 2005, Lifepoint Hospital, Inc. terminated its agreement with Palo Verde Health Care District Board. and the hospital’s assets were distributed back to the District.

From San Bernadino County:  "When a private medical care contractor abandoned the residents of Needles by moving most of its operation to a new hospital miles away across the river in Arizona, the County of San Bernardino felt obligated to step in.  The ensuing drainage of resources has caused Needles’ hospital, Colorado River Medical Center, to wither on the vine. These actions by the contractor, LifePoint Hospitals, Inc., have left the most vulnerable citizens of the small town on the Colorado River without adequate access to health care – a situation we cannot tolerate and must address."  (Brad Mitzelfelt, County Supervisor)

Sorry if the hosptial evaluation are not up to your "research standards," I just wanted to give nurses a venue to express which hospitals are traveler friendly, and which ones are not.  It was set up as a simple tool for nurses to use.  And no, I don't have any formal research educaiton, I just have a little old Bachelors in Education and an Associates in Nursing.

>At any rate if your allegations have merit...  as stated above, you don't have to believe me, just vote them in and you will see.  I know what things were like when I was there, and I have the seen evaluations of Valley View, Las Cruces (at another travel nursing website in a members area), and Lake Havasu hospitals...  and everyone of them have the same ring to it, "staffing is a nightmare."

If Quality Management would like to talk to me, then they are more than welcome to email me at:  epi@epsteinlarue.com  I would have gone to the meetings, but I was unaware of them until too late. 

I was also told by a member of Quality Management,  at PMC,  that life point has no hospitals in California. However, if your patient to nurse ratios are correct and Lifepoint is encourageing those kinds of ratios in  order to keep expenses lower at any of the hospitals they are partnering with, that is an issue we ought to be talking to them about. before a decision is made.

I tried to look at your Traveling Nurses hospital  evaluation website. I did see one poor evaluation for an Arizona Lifepoint hospital, but the evaluation wasn't set up so that someone who is familiar with research and evaluation processes could glean very much useful information. 

At any rate if your allegations have merit, you should be talking to The PMC Board. Hopefully you will do that and give them all the information you have so they can make the most informed decision possible.  

Zeezer, Yes, I'm sure that I worked at a hospital in California that was owned by Province/LifePoint Healthcare (they merged).  You don't see the California hospitals, because the two that they owned, Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe, California, and Colorado River Medical Center in Needles, California, they SOLD back to the communities.  It was about that time that they also built Valley View Medical Center in Fort Mohave, Arizona. 

Province/Lifepoint Healthcare is a "spin off" of HCA.  They are the urban version of HCA.  I have also worked in a few of those hospitals...  Both are well known in the travel nursing field for having high nurse to patient ratio's.  Unless you're smart enough to put your nurse to patient ratio's in your contract then you CAN be assigned up to 8 or 9 patients.  And in some states, the LPNs can't do as much as the RN, so you get to help them also. 

It's not just me, I have three other evaluations from traveling nurses who say that the patient ratios were rediculous and at some time in their contract, they felt like their license was on the line.  And these were all since I worked there, so I know that things haven't changed.

You don't have to believe me, vote them in and then you will see.

I suggest you send this same message to, Letters to the editor, at, ifennell@journalnet.com  and the hospital board if you have not already done so.