Per diem nursing has been a legitimate way for healthcare facilities to fill shift vacancies and short term employment gaps for years. However, on-demand PRN nurses have never been more important than in this last year as the pandemic swept over the country.
Healthcare Facilities Needed On-Demand Nurses Fast
In March, PRN nurses and travel nurses from all over the country traveled to COVID hotspots to help on the frontlines, or filled PRN shifts in their community and neighboring community hospitals as the patient numbers climbed. Subsequently, nurse walk outs happened in facilities across the nation. In Detroit, eight nurses walked off the job protesting staff to patient ratios.
In California, a skilled nursing facility had to be evacuated and moved to other facilities because staff stopped showing up for work. In Pennsylvania nursing staff walked out with nearly 800 patients in the facility. PRN nurses and travel nurses helped to fill the trenches and filled employment gaps quickly, proving that 2020 is absolutely the year of the nurse, and that on-demand healthcare can save lives.
NursaTM Emergency Response Initiative
NursaTM reacted quickly and set up an Emergency Response Initiative to send nurses to the frontlines either by traveling or by working PRN shifts in facilities near enough for them to drive. We sent RNs, LPNs, and CNAs all over. We've been writing about what is happening with nurses nationwide, and worldwide. We are connected with what is happening in our industry, and with our nurses.
After the initial spike in COVID 19 deployment of nurses to hotspots like Washington state and New York City, travel nurses began to have a problem of cancelled contracts. Healthcare facilities across the nation have been hemorrhaging money as they shut down all procedures not emergency or COVID related. Moreover, travel nurses and nurses who work mostly PRN shifts for income began to worry a bit about what the rest of 2020 would hold for them.
However, as states reopen and hospitals and medical centers begin to provide elective procedures and non-emergency medical services, we have also seen an uptick in the number of confirmed COVID cases.
As of July 8, 2020, the CDC reports more than 50,000 new cases nationwide, bringing the national total confirmed cases just under 3 million. Clearly, COVID isn't leaving quietly out the back door. In response, NursaTM is seeing an uptick in PRN shifts and travel nursing contracts in facilities nationwide. Is your facility gearing up for another wave as well?
NursaTM Is a Better PRN on Demand Solution
NursaTM was created on the premise that agencies need a better way to connect with nurses either already living in their communities or willing to travel to for PRN on demand shifts in real time. The on-demand healthcare marketplace has historically been about using agencies to find nurses involving lots of phone calls and more recently lots of emails and always copious amounts of paperwork.
NursaTM eliminates the faxes, the emails, and the bulk of the paperwork in favor of a streamlined process that reduces the time lag that invariably occurs with other nursing agencies. NursaTM focuses on facilitating connections between nurses and facilities.
We provide the platform through our cutting-edge application that allows agencies to submit job postings for PRN shifts, part time jobs, short term full time employment and any other type of on-demand work they need.
Nurses register and create their professional profiles. They verify their licenses and their certifications and then they scroll through the job postings provided by healthcare agencies to find a PRN shift, or a part time job, or a short-term contract; whatever employment type fits their needs and their schedules.
NursaTM Fills Shift Gaps in Real Time
These job postings don't have to be planned in advance, the demand can be filled with short notice. Our RNs, LPNs, and CNAs come to NursaTM, knowing that if they're looking for an extra shift on Wednesday night, that they can scroll through the posted jobs and meet that need. If the facility is short two CNAs and an RN for the Friday night shift and the morning shift they'll upload those shift gaps to the NursaTM system instead of burdening their fulltime staff with higher nurse to patient ratios or making frantic last minute phone calls.
Utilizing PRN and On-Demand Staffing Solutions Can Help Facilities Save Money
There is no doubt that the cost for a healthcare facility to go through the process of hiring a full-time employee, is high. The interviewing, the orientation, the scheduling, the benefits involve other employees and their time and energy.
Utilizing PRN and on-demand RNs, LPNs, and CNAs to supplement a lean full-time crew of clinicians could help your facility save money. Have licensed and certified medical professionals available when the workload and patient numbers in your facility need them, and don't have extra workers when workload and patient numbers are down.
It's not only a benefit to your facility, but to the nurses as well. RNs, LPNs, and CNAs like PRN work because it allows them to work on their own terms and on their own schedules. The can schedule work around their life, instead of scheduling life around their work. Having nurses full your shift gaps who want to be there, as opposed to another full-time employee who is tired because they're doing a double shift, is good for business. It's good for your other staff, it's good for your patients, and it's good for that nurse because it was their choice.
Join Nursa today and change the way you handle nurse staffing and recruitment.
