Amidst staff shortages and high hospitalization rates during the pandemic, many hospitals have relied on travel nurses to keep up with the volume of patients – and while the practice drains many hospitals’ budgets, experts believe it will continue beyond Covid-19.
Hospitals increasingly rely on travel nurses
Currently, there are more than 5 million nurses in the United States, including about 4.2 million, according to the National Council of State Councils of Nursing. However, burnout, burnout and other issues have resulted in many leaving their full-time jobs to pursue less stressful careers during the pandemic. Additionally, many full-time employee positions have moved to travel nursing due to increased wages and scheduling flexibility.
Notably, the United States has enough nurses to fill needed full-time positions, according to Linda Aiken, professor of nursing and psychology at University of Pennsylvania Who is looking at workforce issues, but the problem stems from the harsh working conditions and insufficient wages that have been in place in full-time nursing since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This is not a failure in our nursing supply,” Aiken said. “It’s really a failure of hospitals to invest enough of their resources, to have enough nurses working for them.”
However, the data from In fact It shows that interest in travel nursing continues to rise, with job searches now reaching more than five times that of pre-pandemic searches.
Zachary Shepherd, a 36-year-old ICU nurse, has worked as a travel nurse for the past four years. He has worked in intensive care units in Covid-19 hot spots, including Newark, NJ and Long Beach, California. Shepherd said he doesn’t mind the uncertainty surrounding his work because he has the flexibility associated with working as a travel nurse.
“I love the empowerment I feel from being a traveler and having more control over the direction of my career,” Shepherd said.
Meanwhile, the hiring of nurses fell 3.2% in February 2022 compared to the previous year, according to US Department of Labor.
Troy Clark, CEO of New Mexico Hospital Association. “It encourages them to go, ‘If I’m going to do all this work, I might as well go get a traveler and get a lot more money. ”
The emergence of travel nursing leads to budgetary concerns and wage gaps
In 2021, travel nursing revenue tripled to an estimated $11.8 billion, compared to $3.9 billion in 2015, according to Recruitment Industry Analysts. As a result, hospitals and health systems across the country have taken a financial hit from having to rely on highly paid travel nurses — with no clear solution in sight.
according to ZipRecruiterDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, wages for travel nurses increased by as much as 3.4 times the wages of regular full-time nurses in January 2021.
Additionally, ZipRecruiter in January reported a 15% increase in average monthly hires for nursing positions open to travel. According to Sinem Popper, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, the increase is likely to continue as the backlog of patients requiring elective procedures returns to hospitals and the population continues to age.
“I don’t see the trend declining or becoming flat any time soon, even if the epidemic wanes,” Popper said.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center (SRMC) You’ve never had to rely on travel nurses. Now, their monthly payroll ranges to nearly $1.5 million for about 60 travel nurses — roughly half of those of its 580 full-time employees, who receive about $3.3 million.
CEO Jimmy Silva Steele said that during the pandemic, SRMC has lost nearly a third of its 200 nurses in travel jobs, forcing them to ramp up staffing levels to meet the growing demand of Covid-19 patients. With potential travel nursing costs of $18 million in 2023, Silva Steele plans to replace 40% of the center’s travel nurses with full-time staff by the end of June.
“We haven’t budgeted another $18 million in compensation, so we have to have those strategies in place to gradually reduce these types of employees in the organization,” Silva Steele said.
To reduce the financial stress caused by travel nursing, many hospital administrators are making efforts to reduce the number of travelers – and some are considering not renewing travel contracts, Bloomberg reports.
finally, “[w]We want our nurses and all medical staff to be paid fairly, but we must be able to keep the doors open,” Clark said. Baker Hospital Review, 3/16; Adegbesan, Bloomberg3/15
