Nursing Blog – CNA Training, And Other Nursing Job and Information

The present situation of recruiting nurses, therapists, pharmacists etc. is very tough. Reputed Nurse Agencies are better placed to provide nursing staff of all categories to the hospitals and nursing homes.

The statistics suggest that presently 84 % of US hospitals are understaffed and their service is affected due to nursing staff shortages experienced by them. With the present nursing shortage the situation is going to be worse in the following years as expressed by the American Hospital Association.   

Registered Nurses Availability v/s Requirement:

The requirement of nurses is much higher than the requirement and in a short time it is not possible to get these nurses so quickly even in spite new training programs launched. The shortage of nursing staff is so severe that besides the suffering at the hospital set ups, there is no availability of nurses for community welfare programs. About half a century before there was never any shortage in the nursing staff felt. Considering the long term need of nurses, the present shortage is going to exceed in it’s dimensions beyond imagination.

Even with the arrival of offshore nurses, the shortage is bound to remain since the shortage. The shortage experienced is in certain specific high skilful areas of specialization like kidney dialysis, surgery and intensive care departments. 

Wrong way of Managing Nurse Shortage:

It is a sad situation that the hospitals are resorting to deployment of traveling nurses can be compared to a situation selecting a less effective solution, when the need is of a solution many times potent. Use of travel nurse in place of low salary staff has capability producing an imbalance in already staff in short supply. Some nurses may leave to become a travel nurse because of capability of earning more. This situation is required to be reversed to prevent further damage of understaffing of nurses.

Thinking of travel nurses, temporary staffing agencies become expensive short term solutions affecting profitability, staff moral and retention aspects resulting into shortfall in the level of patient care.

By resorting to overtime payment to get, additional services from low level staff, results in poor performance of the nurses besides inflated budgeted expenditure.

Based on the analysis carried out by AONE, the expenditure per Registered nurse is $50,000 partly accounted for with balance unaccounted in a year.

The actual total costs of turnover are $42,000 per medical/ surgical RN and $64,000 per specialty nurse.

The Benefits of Availing Nurse Agency:

It is possible to get benefit from long term solution and correct the staff crisis with prescreened nurses with total guarantee regarding candidates procured through reputed nurse agencies. One also benefits in cutting cost in selection process of the nurses by self involvement. One saves on time spent in selection process. Some of the benefits can be viewed as below:

• More retention Time for the Nurses, by signing a 36 months contract with the nurses secured through reputed nursing agency.
• Ready availability of adequately trained nurses and therapists.
• Meeting the affordability criteria, there is likely hood of saving around 40 %.
• Increase in the profitability or the healthcare facility.
• Better performance because newly hired nurses are highly motivated in comparison to other nurses in contrast to traveling nurses.
• Nursing agency takes care of al the matters related to immigration support and searching the creditworthiness of the nurse before considered for appointment.

The definition of Nursing Agency as appearing in Florida Statutes 400.462 states “A person who gets, makes the offering, does the promise for getting healthcare contracts for healthcare professionals like registered nurses, Licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, home health aides, companions or home makers, who are compensated by fees as independent contractors including, but not limited to, contracts for provision of services, to patients and contracts to provide private duty or staffing services to health care facilities licensed under chapter 395, this chapter or chapter 429 or other business entities”.

A nursing agency is a business entity providing nurses and normally healthcare assistants also referred as certified nursing assistants to person, who are requiring the services of health care assistants. The nurses get temporary employment through the nursing agency at the hospitals, care homes, and other health care providers to assist them during overload of work period or in situations of their staff on long leave to fill the necessity of the health care providers. Some of the nurses are sent to the homes of the patients, who require nursing care at their homes.

In US the Nursing Agency is also called nursing registry, being nursing staff providers on per day basis or for longer duration to the hospitals, medical offices and individual persons. The nursing agencies are small establishments managed by individuals.

Operating a Nurse Agency:

To operate the Nursing Agency one requires lot f funds, because the nurse agencies pay to the nurses as and when they work in a hospital, whereas the nursing agency gets the payment after 3 to 4 months. The nursing agency operates on a margin of 4 % to as high as 70 % depending upon the quality of the nurses engaged by the agency.

The nursing agency operates to meet the seasonal needs of the hospital. The hospitals prefer paying overtime to their staff during holidays instead of availing the services of a nursing agency for hiring nurses through them. In the summer months, when the hospital staff goes on vacations of long duration, there is good business for the nursing agency.

Nurse Agency requires lot of responsibility on the part of the operator in respect of the nurses being provided to the hospital involving undertaking of the liability claims on behalf of the nurse provided in the event any negligence or in-appropriate action takes place at the place of work in a patient handled by the nurse. There can be law suits pertaining to any injury to the patient occurred while the patient was under the care of such a nurse. The nurse agency must insure itself against malpractice conduct of the nurses provided to be on safe side for provision of damages in a law suit.

Existence of Online Nurse Agency Services:

In view of the present draw backs in carrying out the profession of the nurse agency and the technology advances offered by the internet the nurse agency now put up job boards on their website, whereby the employer’s need of the certified nursing assistant or any other required nursing professional can be compared with the data of Registered Nurses of the nurse agency. Thus a direct contact of the candidates with the employers can be arranged eliminating any liabilities on the part of online nurse agency.