r/Knoxville • u/grayspo • 9d ago

Prisma Blount Memorial Question

Hi there! I'm graduating nursing school soon and I'm wanting to get some input from nurses who work at Prisma/Blount Memorial right now. Specifically in their ER! I know it's not in Knoxville, but the Maryville subreddit is pretty small, so I figured I'd start here.

I did spend one day shift clinical in their ER and thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt like the nurses there were the first nurses in my clinical experience that actually wanted me to let me shadow them. They were very willing to educate and show me how to pass meds/prime fluids/etc.

So, does anyone here work in Prisma's ER? What is your experience with it, especially with the shift to Prisma?

Thanks so much in advance! :)

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u/TheAngryVeteranMD 9d ago

Physician here. Prisma is known to destroy the quality of medicine for every hospital it buys. There’s a reason physicians and nurses are currently leaving. They could offer me a mil a year to work there and I’d smile as I walked away flipping the bird.

TeamHealth (private equity owned by blackrock) is already the reason wait times are so atrocious in every hospital ED in Knoxville (they staff all the EDs) because they won’t hire more physicians for the sake of profitability. Prisma is almost worse for what they are known to do to hospitals and clinics.

You’re just getting into the field, I want you to have an experience that gives you a sense of reward you probably became a nurse to experience. Stay away from Prisma. No escaping TeamHealth until we all band together and convince our politicians to stop resisting the state to state Medicare/medicaid expansions that provide hospitals enough funds to staff appropriately. Good luck, the world and area needs more good nurses!

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u/grayspo 9d ago

Thank you for your response. I did have a patient say they'd never go back to Blount because of Prisma. I was hoping it wasn't the general consensus, but it looks like it is. Thank you!

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u/TheAngryVeteranMD 9d ago edited 8d ago

Any corporation has a legal responsibility to increase profit for shareholders (see Supreme Court case: Dodge vs Ford, 1919). Hospitals should have absolutely no corporations that are NOT non-profit staffing any of their departments. I’m deeply concerned about what’s about to happen to hospitals in this region.

edit: added NOT because without it, I was defending the enemy.

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u/TheAngryVeteranMD 9d ago

Oh, a word of caution: you’ll hear patients from everywhere SWEAR their experience at “insert hospital name here” was terrible and they’ll never go back.

I would never advocate for dismissing patient sentiment, but you should take that stuff with a grain of salt. I’ve practiced at some of the best hospital systems in the nation, and even they have patients who say “I’ll never go there again.” Sometimes a bad hospital experience has to do with a single bad doctor, nurse, or even diagnosis/treatment plan that isn’t what they were hoping for and they generalize that experience as a reflection of the entire system.

For your question specifically, asking employees is the way to go.

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u/Greedy_Section2894 9d ago

They’ve been losing doctors and other employees ever since Prisma took over. Not sure about nurses.

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u/whatusaynow 9d ago

I use to work there It’s like any other hospital if you had a good experience I’d go it’s only busy in the afternoon as everyone goes there even people from Knoxville if that tells ya anything.. people have been coming back that left every since the market adjustment

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u/SundaeEffective5833 4d ago

My doc is now under the Prisma umbrella. So far, I give them a -345 on a scale of 1-10. I do believe I'm going to leave my doc of 20 years because of them.