Last month, The Maryland Hospital Associations released finding that 1 in 4 hospital nursing positions in the state were vacant. The association called the lack of nurses “the most critical staffing shortage”.
From 2020 to 2022, hospital vacancies for nursing positions nearly doubled.
Many nurses resigned their job from the hospital positions to get higher paying jobs as travel nurses. Hospitals also rely on temporary staff to address seasonal needs like flu etc.
The issue is that during the pandemic, many hospitals needed many more nurses all at once. Hence, hospitals had to pay more to travel nurses as much as 10 times as compared to the salary of staff nurses which leads to resentment or dissatisfaction among the nurses who stayed and had to train the higher-paid newcomers. For that reason, many nurses resign their jobs and join travel nurses’ agencies.
The American Hospital Associationm reports that in January 2022, hospital spent almost 40 percent of their total nursing costs on travel nurses, more from 5 percent in January 2019.
Patricia (Polly) Pittman, PhD, one of the nations’ preeminent nursing workforce researchers, said that it is the hospital own decision to depend on the travel nurses which almost depleted their regular staff. She also added that hospitals have no redundancy and the lean staffing really hurt them here.
Who is SHE?
- She is a Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University.
- Dr. Pittman holds a secondary appointment in the School of Nursing.
- She is the director of the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity, Health Workforce Research Center on Emerging Health Workforce Topics, and Health Workforce Research Center on Equity in Health Workforce Education and Training.
- Her recent attention is on workforce innovations in the context of system change.
- She is currently leading the Moral Injury Among Nurses project, which hopes to inform policies and programs that seek to improve the working conditions of nurses.
She points to the steady growth of the nursing students over the past 15 years and high numbers of the internationally educated nurses who working in the United States.
STEPS TAKEN BY THE HOSPITALS TO RETAIN THE STAFF:
- Many hospitals have inclined the pay for nurses, and some of them offering incentives such as loan repayment and retention bonuses.
- Improve working conditions of the nurses.
- Create more worker-friendly schedules.
- Hire enough support staff such as medical assistants and patient-care technicians.
- Reduce barriers to reentry for those nurses who have left and wish to return.
- Take a hard look at their own staffing models
- Nursing staff do not always feel overwhelmed and overworked.
The nursing staff shortage is leading one of the biggest problems that existed prior to the pandemic but was dramatically worsened by it.
Short brief on travel nurses
Travel nurses are registered nurses who work in short term roles at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities all over the world.
Travel nurses fill gaps in those areas where there is shortage of nursing staff. As a result, the average travel nurse salary is quite high.
Under normal circumstances, many travel nurses have potential to earn over $3000 per week. They can bring in over $50 per hour including the company paid housing accommodations.
Covid has increased travel nurses’ rates.
Travel nurses are earning over $10,000 per week working COVID CRISIS working covid contracts.
HOW DOES TRAVEL NURSES PAY DIFFER FROM STAFF NURSE PAY?
Staff nurses in a hospital are usually paid a set paid salary based on the education and experience. Whereas travel nurses pay is totally different because they have a pay package which are composed of various components including hourly pay, non-taxed housing stipends, non-taxed per Diems, travel reimbursements, and many more.
DEFINE NON-TAXED STIPENDS FOR TRAVEL NURSES?
NON-TAXED STIPENDS are used for expenses such as housing, meals, and other incidentals.
ROLES and DUTIES of the travel nurses:
Duties varies a great deal between specialties:
- Examining patients
- Speaking with patients about their symptoms and histories in order to provide critical care
- Deliver essential information
- Counselling
- Key role in providing medication and treatment delivery
- Research
- Collaboration
- Ensure high quality care