There has been a significant shift in the number of healthcare professionals employed globally due to the COVID-19 epidemic. With the rise in cases, nurses got an opportunity to travel to help patients from different geographical locations.
The rich collaboration was fruitful for the nurses, hospitals, and patients. The nurses, with the assistance of agencies, got a chance to explore while helping the patients with better care.
The article discusses the factors that contributed to the growth of the travel nursing industry and how those factors affected healthcare organizations.
Reasons for the Flourish of Travel Nursing
The nation’s nursing shortfall is addressed by traveling nurses. Even though traveling nurses have consistently received higher pay than their staff counterparts — COVID-19 has increased the rates. Let’s examine the factors that contribute to its popularity:
Freedom and Flexibility
Travel nursing provides freedom and flexibility – they can choose when and where to work. Additionally, they are free to take as many vacations as they need in between contracts to spend time with their loved ones. Their work-life balance and level of job satisfaction are improved as a result. They are motivated to work harder and prioritize their tasks as a result.
Opportunities for Exploration
Travel nurses get the opportunity to explore other cities and towns, as well as the natural beauty of the world. You may go wherever you want, and you can easily take advantage of what each city offers. Few occupations provide the freedom to live anywhere according to your choice.
Fewer Management Issues
Every workplace has a lot of political and management issues. But with travel nursing, one can easily concentrate on patient care without getting caught up in politics. Additionally, if a travel nursing assignment is not a good fit, one can leave it and accept a new one.
Better Income
Travel nurses typically make high hourly rates because most businesses offer shift differentials, overtime, and some institutions even provide completion incentives. As part of their extraordinary compensation packages, traveling nurses receive competitive hourly pay, free furnished housing, and health insurance starting on the first day of their assignment.
How Is Travel Nursing Impacting the Healthcare Sector?
The hospital working conditions have already made the nurses unhappy with their jobs. Before the pandemic, they had no other option. However, due to the possibility of working as a travel nurse and the higher salary it gives, demand for travel nursing skyrocketed after the epidemic. The following are some of the ways travel nursing is affecting the healthcare industry:
Staffing Shortage
With the aid of travel nursing firms that assist them in finding employment, more nurses are departing from their positions. As a result, hospitals are struggling to find enough staff to meet patient needs. One staffing company in San Diego, California, witnessed a growth of 37% in their travel nurse staffing business over the previous 12 months.
Dissatisfaction Among Employees
To keep the unit fully staffed when the hospital is overrun with patients, it is necessary to hire travel nurses at a higher salary. Due to their relatively lower wage, the current employees have become more and more dissatisfied. It may harm hospital staff morale and cause full-time nurses to quit and become travel nurses.
Price Surging
Healthcare organizations must pay their staff members three times as much as they would otherwise. An enormous price increase in hospitals due to this unstable market scenario prompted federal involvement. Even if the client needs assistance for three shifts, this mandates hospitals or other staffing agency clients to sign a contract for eight weeks of employment.
The Bottom Line
That is what the worldwide nursing crisis of the year 19 has done to the development of medical facilities. An unprecedented number of nurses are taking early retirement, leaving the profession, or leaving their hospital jobs to work again as staffing agency employees.
Hospitals and other businesses are effectively forced to pay staffing firms whatever fees are necessary to secure help when they lose a large number of nurses, further risking the financial stability of the healthcare sector or endangering patient lives.
Legislators at the state and federal levels would be wise to enact price gouging regulations that are both effective and don’t discourage companies from using ethical business methods that benefit the general population.
