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We've written quite a bit over the course of this blog about the nursing staff shortage. Most of these informational articles have covered tips for healthcare workers on how to navigate burnout, relationships with their patients, and the PRN world, but today we turn our attention to the facilities.
The healthcare staff shortages cause problems not only for nurses (RNs and LPNs), and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) - but the facilities themselves too. PRN staffing is a good setup for the clinicians, but it actually has some big benefits for the facilities too. Here are six of the big benefits of posting PRN jobs for hospitals and healthcare facilities.
6 Benefits of PRN Jobs for Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities
1. Hiring PRN staff is a quick, if not an outright, immediate solution to staffing vacancies. The application process for screening, interviewing, and assembling appropriate documentation for a new hire is a long process. Even with assistance from an application screening software, time is not on your side. Hiring PRN staff fills those shift vacancies immediately, and the best part is, the screening and documentation gathering is already done for you, by the PRN staffing agency.
2. Hiring PRN staff gives your facility increased access to a wider pool of skilled clinicians. If your facility is struggling with filling skilled nurse staff vacancies, hiring PRN staff can help solve your staffing problem. We all know there's a nurse shortage, and administrators for facilities know that the shortage extends to healthcare support staff, and more specialized positions as well. When facilities agree to hire on PRN staff, not only do they find quick solutions to vacancies that allow them to maintain necessary nurse to patient ratios, but they access a deeper pool of talent because of the nature of PRN.
There are thousands if not millions of qualified healthcare staff, that for multiple reasons are not able to commit to full-time employment. Some of these reasons may include:
They are the main caregivers for other adults or children in their home and therefore cannot commit to a fixed 40 hour per week schedule.
- They are furthering their education through classes at a University or local college.
- They are small business owners.
- They are retired.
- They took a break from the industry and aren't sure if they're ready to commit all the way back.
- They like changing up their work setting.
There are countless other reasons that CNAs, LPNs, RNs, and other allied healthcare professionals in your own community don't show up in your employment applicant pool, but those are the most common. What this means for your HR department, is that there are many able-bodied and skilled medical care staff available to work in your facility when you hire PRN.
3. Hiring PRN staff is an affordable choice. This one may be surprising to some, however, it's really quite clear when you break it down. The money a facility invests in a new hire is substantial. Not only is the facility taking on the responsibility of paying a competitive wage to attract and retain the said employee, but they take on all the financial aspects of employee benefits such as health insurance, retirement benefits, overtime, holiday, and shift differential costs, paid sick leave, paid vacation. Moreover, don't forget the wages of the staff who use their work time to execute the hiring and training processes.
4. Safe staffing levels help efficiency which helps the facility’s bottom line. Maintaining safe staffing levels for your facility may seem like an additional cost at first, but studies have proven that safe staffing levels help reduce staff burnout which in turn reduces hiring and training costs. It also increases your facility's efficiency levels. Efficiency is directly tied to the profitability levels of a facility. Better work means fewer errors and more capacity for profit.
5. PRN staff can aid your facility's recruitment efforts. Utilizing PRN staff can turn out to be a "trial run" which has an agreeable benefit to recruitment. Regardless of how confident, and qualified an applicant is throughout the hiring process, you don't know for sure how they'll fit in with the workplace community, or the job itself. By hiring PRN staff, you are allowed to observe exactly how they adapt to the settings and the job and how they mesh with your other employees. It's actually quite common for facilities to discover a preference for a PRN clinician and offer them full-time employment.
6. Facility intake is fluid, why can't staffing costs be fluid as well? While it's true that some facilities or some specific departments in facilities have a pretty steady intake flow, it's also true that there are certain times of the year when the intake ebbs and flows. Catastrophic events such as natural disasters, or pandemics can cause a devastatingly fast rise in intake that drops off just as quickly later on. Staff to patient ratios are necessary. Nevertheless, having enough full-time staff to cover the highest intake point isn't necessary all the time. Hiring PRN clinicians to augment your full-time staff when you need it gives you the flexibility to have less staff when intake is low again.
NursaTM PRN Staffing Agency is Free for Facilities to Use
We're different than any other PRN staffing agency you've used before. We operate an online platform, widely used by medical professionals through our smartphone application. It's free for facilities to join and immediate. Once you've registered your facility, you'll be asked to input basic necessary information about your facility, and then you can create listings for each shift you need a PRN staff to cover. You'll only pay for completed shifts, which means posting shifts is free. For facilities in cities that we have an active clinician pool, you can expect your posted shift to be filled in 24 hours. For less urgent staffing needs, three to four days is typical but can stretch out to a week if your facility is in a city new to us.
