VA Offers New Travel Nurse Program

It seems like everyone has something to say about the increasing nurse shortage, but there aren’t many who have come up with a solution to the ever-present problem.  According to a press release issued on March 11, the Department of Veteran Affairs has a plan–Travel Nurse Corps.

Headquartered at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, “participating nurses may be temporarily assigned to distant medical centers and clinics to help nursing staffs that have vacancies, to reduce wait times or the reliance upon contractors, or to maintain high-skill services and procedures.”

Click here to read the entire press release: VA’s New ‘Travel Nurse Program’ Hits the Road

Q: What do you think about this new venture?  Should Travel Nurse Corps be viewed as competition to private travel nurse staffing agencies?

Journal of Nursing Administration To Publish Nurse Staffing Study

In the July 30 edition of ASA’s Staffing Week E-newsletter, contributing editors reported that the highly antitipated temporary nurse staffing research of Dr. Linda Aiken will be published in the July-August issue of the Journal of Nursing Administration. Read below to get the full scoop on Dr. Aiken’s work and her findings…

 

“Imagine your whole work force dogged by a rumor—a persistent shadow that follows your temporary staff and your business. Health care staffing companies have lived with that shadow for years: the perception that temporary nurses provide lower quality of care than permanent nurses. In 2003, the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit organization, went so far as to declare temporary nurses “a threat to patient safety.”

 

To counter this perception, ASA contracted with the University of Pennsylvania to examine the relationship between the use of temporary staff and patient outcomes (including quality of life, length of stay, and health status). Linda Aiken, Ph.D., RN, director of the university’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, led the study. Nineteen health care staffing firms joined ASA in sponsoring it.

 

Aiken and her team concluded that nurses employed by staffing companies are as well or better qualified than permanent nurses employed by hospitals and that the higher use of temporary nurses does not lead to safety and quality problems for patients or nurses.

 

The results come as no surprise to members of the ASA health care section. “The nurses we provide are a tremendous asset to hospitals that need to have adequate coverage for nursing care,” says David Savitsky of ATC Healthcare Services, chairman of the section’s policy council.


While Aiken’s research continues, the findings of her team thus far will be reported in the July–August issue of the Journal of Nursing Administration, which goes to 6,000 nurse executives and their associates in hospitals and other health care settings.

-Lindsay Estes”

 

With the current nurse shortage looming in today’s healthcare facilities, Dr. Linda Aiken’s findings will show just how valuable temp nurses are to the survival and success of the American healthcare system.

 

How immigration reform will affect the nursing shortage

Each year there are about 12,000 to15,000 foreign nurses accepted into the USA through the current immigration system, and if the new proposal is approved, hospital recruiters worry that it will become even more difficult to fill the 118,000 nurse deficit.

 

Under the new bill, hospitals would no longer be able to seek out nurses with specific expertise, and American-bound nurses would no longer have to be screened by the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS).

 

Click here to read the article: Hospitals fear the loss of control finding nurses.

Nursing Shortage Inspires Legislation: Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act of 2007

In the beginning of May, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Pete Stark, D-CA, introduced the Safe Nursing and Patient Care Act of 2007 (H.R. 2122), which will limit the amount of mandatory overtime a nurse may be required to work.

 

“Mandatory overtime exhausts nurses mentally and physically, placing patients’ lives at risk and driving nurses out of the profession,” said Stark. “We limit the time that truck drivers and pilots can work to protect public safety. Safe nursing is in the public interest as well.”

 

It’s good to know that legislation is being passed to improve on the conditions of overworked nurses and overall nurse shortages in the United States.  Temp medical staffing agencies offer another alternative to combating nurse burnout rates.  By delivering fresh employees to cover overtime and vacation shifts, everyone wins, including the patient.

Primary-Care Doctors Leaving Medicine in Droves

The Physicians’ Foundation recently conducted a survey of 150,000 doctors nationwide, and 49 percent of the 12,000 respondents reported that they were considering leaving medicine because of “too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies.”

Last week’s American Medical Association annual meeting predicted a shortage of 35,000-40,000 of primary care physicians by 2025.  According to a survey published in the September issue of the Journal of the Medical Association, only 2 percent of med school students plan to practice family medicine.

PRN Funding has written before about using temporary nurses to help fill the gaps when it comes to the nurse shortage.  Perhaps this physician shortage is an opportunity for locum tenens to seize.  What do you think?

This post referenced an article on CNN.com.  Click here if you want to read the entire article: Half of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine.

Linda Aiken to Speak at Healthcare Staffing Summit

Associates of PRN Funding can still remember the first time they heard Professor Linda Aiken speak when she was a guest presenter at Staffing World 2004 in Washington DC.  We were blown away by the amount of information Professor Aiken had to say about how temporary nurse staffing agencies can help defeat the nurse shortage.

Now professor Aiken is scheduled to speak at the 2008 Healthcare Staffing Summit about her most recent project, which involved research on more than 40,000 nurses in 900 hospitals, including travel nurses and per diem nurses.  She will also discuss another one of her studies that found temporary nurses are just as qualified as traditionally employed nurses.

For those medical staffing agency owners who will be attending this year’s conference, don’t miss this talk!

Nursing crunch may be hard to fix

Theo Francis wrote a post The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog about the nurse shortage and some of its causes.  Although the outlook looks bleak, he mentioned a unique source of new nurses–Career-changers.  Crediting the Boston Globe, Francis explains how the healthcare system can cope with the nursing shortage by “tapping mid-career professionals who go to nursing school for a change of pace or after taking early retirement.” 

 

Click here to read the entire post with reader comments: Nursing crunch may be hard to fix.

 

Area hospitals filling vacant nursing jobs

A survey conducted by the Dallas-Fort Hospital Council reported that the vacancy rate for RNs local to the state of Texas is now 8.8 percent, which is down from 10 percent in 2005 and from 9 percent two years before that.  The survey gives credit to flexible training programs and international recruiting for helping with the nurse staffing crunch in Texas. 

 

Although this is good news for Metroplex hospitals, healthcare providers are still facing nurse shortages across the nation.  In fact, the American Hospital Association estimates 116,000 registered-nurse jobs are unfilled nationwide.  Another tactic not mentioned, which has worked well in other medical facilities with nurse shortages is to utilize temporary nurse staffing agencies to help fill vacancies. 

 

Click here to read the entire article: Area hospitals filling vacant nursing jobs.

 

31 Percent of Healthcare Facilities Plan to Increase Staffing

Preparing for a wave of newly insured patients thanks to the Affordable Care Act, a new report shows that 31 percent of health facilities are ready to increase their medical staffing.

Staff Care, a subsidiary of healthcare staffing company AMN Healthcare, conducted a survey that polled 230 managers of hospitals and medical practices in the U.S.

Over 16 percent said they plan to hire more nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Additionally, more than 7 percent said they would increase their temporary physician staffing to keep up with growing demand and an aging population. The demand for locum tenens physicians rose from 73% in 2012 to nearly 90% in 2013, showing a significant increase in temporary physician staffing. Demand is also quickly rising for locum tenens nurse practitioners and PA’s.

Data shows that healthcare facilities are moving away from traditional private practice models toward locum tenens staffing to maintain high quality patient care in spite of staffing shortages and increasing demand. This survey is one of many to highlight increasing employment opportunities for healthcare professionals and temporary healthcare staffing companies alike.

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