Traveling Nurse Agencies Continue to See Demand From Hospitals for More Staff – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
Travel nurses remain in great demand as hospitals seek more staff. A Plano-based agency that helps health workers find contracted jobs with providers said the number of entries they continue to receive from hospitals is significant.
“The traffic has increased, we can’t keep up, to be honest. The need is actually higher today than it was at the height of the pandemic last year, “said Scott Clutter, senior vice president of operations at StaffDNA.
He said they see around 3,000 active users daily on their app, which continues to grow.
He said their software helps traveling nurses find the jobs they want, and StaffDNA works with hospitals and other providers across the country.
“Our resources are really focused on making sure that accuracy is guaranteed. So when they come to our platform, they are confident that the information they see is in real time and they can actually do everything themselves, create their own packages there, customize them as they need, and let them then hand themselves over to the facility without waiting for someone to go through, “explains Clutter.
The recent demand for more patients with the labor shortage is leading hospitals to seek contractors to fill the void.
“The need is actually higher than last year, and it’s not just COVID, it’s the job itself,” Scott explained of nurses who work between 40 and 60 hours a week in highly stressful environments.
Burnout, retirement, health concerns, and pay are some of the reasons that nurses leave their hospital jobs. It’s not exactly a new topic, but the pandemic has accelerated staff shortages, according to various administrators around DFW.
The recent influx of COVID-19 patients has really put the spotlight on the need for nurses and it’s not necessarily that they are leaving the industry, but rather that they are turning to higher-paying jobs as traveling nurses.
“The agencies are obviously offering great dollars and it’s getting really difficult for public bodies to keep up with that,” said Dr. Joseph Chang, Chief Medical Officer of Parkland Hospital.
Parkland, the county hospital for Dallas County, requires 470 full-time positions, mostly in nursing.
“We’ve had situations where people signed up for these travel agencies and then we actually put them back at the higher agency rates and that’s clearly an untenable situation for a public body like ours.” explained Chang.
According to Clutter, hospitals typically rely on companies like his to fill short-term vacancies when people go on vacation, maternity leave, or sick leave.
He said it wasn’t always a longer-term need, but given the current climate, don’t expect the market to slow down.
“Typically, the greater the need, the higher the pay for the contract you get and the DFW area has quite a massive nurse brain drain so there is a staff shortage so a lot of contracts are actually paid properly now, “said Ethan Gloger, a traveling nurse.
He started as a nurse in 2013 and worked at Parkland Hospital for seven years. In 2020 he became a traveling nurse and most recently signed a contract in Tennessee.
He currently has an eight-week contract with a Dallas hospital. He works in the intensive care unit and helps with COVID units.
“We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of COVID patients we admit to the point where there is a shortage of beds in the intensive care unit, a shortage of nurses who can care for these patients” , he said.
Gloger said while he makes more money traveling, it isn’t the only reason he got into the field.
“I long for change in my personality. I am always ready for the next adventure around the corner. So it’s definitely my thing to meet new people, new doctors, to experience new things, ”explains Gloger.
Clutter repeated the same thing, saying that some nurses travel because of the flexibility and change of scenery.
But even with all of this, Gloger said it doesn’t take the emotional and physical toll that the pandemic continues to take on nurses, whether traveling or not.
“The numbers keep rising, the stress level is higher, I would say at this point in time than at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Gloger. “We just don’t know when this will end. I don’t know how long this will take, there is no end in sight. It’s hard to look for hopes or goals that we need to achieve. ”
On Thursday afternoon, Governor Greg Abbott’s office announced in a statement that the state would be asking for more out-of-state help for hospital staff:
“By the end of this week, approximately 2,700 medical workers will be called to help hospitals care for the growing numbers of COVID-19 patients across Texas. DSHS will increase that number to at least 5,500 by the end of next week, the governor’s order dated Aug. 9 that DSHS use recruiting agencies to provide medical staff to Texas health facilities out of state to help mitigate the surge in COVID-19 cases in Texas. The additional personnel deployment will be fully financed by the state until September 30 “,
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