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Colorado is one of the states most affected by the nursing shortage. Discover how a healthcare staffing app can provide solutions for hospitals and other facilities in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Solutions with a healthcare staffing app in Colorado Springs
Flexibility. Transparency. Reliability. Efficient investments.
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities need this and more in short-, medium-, and long-term staffing solutions.
Understand the factors that make staffing challenging in Colorado Springs, CO, and learn how a healthcare staffing app can provide solutions.
What are healthcare staffing challenges in Colorado Springs?
Colorado has the third-largest gap between the demand for registered nurses (RNs) and availability, according to a study by consulting firm Mercer. The estimated shortage in 2024 was 7,319 RNs, and it is only expected to worsen, reaching 10,431 in 2026.
The need for additional allied health professionals, such as certified nursing assistants (CNAs), will reach 54,000 by 2026.
Unfortunately, as is occurring across the country, this nursing shortage is exacerbated by numerous factors.
- The population of Colorado continues to age and will need more healthcare services.
- The nursing workforce is also aging and retiring or leaving the profession.
What actions are underway to reverse the nursing shortage?
Numerous efforts are underway to address staffing shortages in Colorado Springs and the rest of the state.
Key partnerships
The Colorado Hospital Association has partnered with the state on numerous healthcare workforce initiatives, including education on workforce wellness, professional development, and workforce pipeline growth.
Significant investments
Hospitals throughout the state have invested more than $1 billion since the pandemic to retain and recruit staff.
Hospitals are offering tuition reimbursement, student loan assistance, training stipends, and professional development programs to build the pipeline of employees.
Healthcare facilities are providing incentive bonuses, market and merit increases, protected pay, and emergency relief for existing nurses.
The Care Forward Colorado program funds zero-cost, short-term training programs at community and technical colleges for numerous healthcare workers, including certified nursing assistants and phlebotomy technicians.
Wellness programs
Facilities are also caring for their healthcare workforce through programs aimed at fostering employee wellness.
Nurse residency programs
In Colorado Springs, two CommonSpirit Health hospitals have been recognized for their nurse residency programs that help transition new nurses from academic settings into the workforce.
What obstacles do these healthcare initiatives face?
Despite numerous initiatives to address the nursing shortage, nursing schools and healthcare facilities continue to face challenges. In fact, the need for nurses is so great that nursing students receive job offers even before they graduate or pass their certification exams.
What factors continue to limit the growth of the nursing workforce?
Shortage of nursing faculty
First, there is a shortage of nursing instructors. Nursing faculty must have a master’s degree in the field in order to teach. However, nurses with higher degrees typically make more money working in hospitals than teaching.
Limited clinical placements
Due to limited resources, smaller hospitals can accept few nursing students to complete their required clinical nursing rotations.
Challenges for nursing preceptors
Preceptors must try to teach while caring for patients, which often leads to burnout.
Deans of Colorado nursing schools claim that more targeted funding is required to increase the number of nursing faculty and provide stipends for nursing preceptors in hospitals to accept students.
How can healthcare facilities meet needs amid this shortage?
Recruiting and retaining nursing staff is challenging. However, this is not the only nurse staffing challenge healthcare facilities face.
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities must maintain adequate RN-to-patient, CNA-to-patient, and other staffing ratios. However, having too many nurses during low census periods creates other problems. This overstaffing places a significant financial burden on facilities.
Facilities need flexible staffing solutions that allow them to adapt to fluctuating needs.
Many healthcare facilities in Colorado Springs and throughout the state turn to nurse staffing agencies for per diem or on-demand staffing. However, nurse staffing companies are not cost-effective solutions for emergency or long-term healthcare staffing.
In cases of emergency staffing, a nurse staffing agency in Colorado Springs, CO, may prioritize larger contracts and leave a facility requiring a nurse for a single shift without coverage. Furthermore, a facility interested in hiring an agency nurse must pay exorbitant hire-away fees.
What healthcare facilities need is a way to find reliable nurses at the lowest cost.
Hospitals and other facilities in Colorado Springs, CO, can use a healthcare staffing app to find the lowest-cost, reliable PRN nurses.
Customized healthcare solutions with a PRN staffing app
Nursa is a healthcare staffing app connecting facilities with local healthcare professionals in Colorado Springs, CO.
The app allows hospitals and other healthcare facilities to supplement internal nursing staff through PRN staffing solutions. Nurse managers can rely on the app for flexible scheduling without dealing with intermediaries or hidden fees.
Here are ways the healthcare staffing app can provide facilities with customized staffing solutions:
- Transparency in pricing: Choose from various pricing options and accept the rate before posting a shift. Only pay PRN nurses for the hours worked—no surprises, no hidden fees.
- Broad pool of clinicians: Our platform does not demand exclusivity. This helps us offer a wide pool of local healthcare professionals with different levels of licensure and specialization in various areas.
- Qualified and vetted clinicians: All clinicians on the app have undergone background checks and credential verification. Furthermore, facilities can customize job postings by requesting specific experience, skills, or certifications.
- Automatic scheduling: To save time, schedulers can use the app’s Auto-Schedule feature to approve their favorite clinicians for open shifts automatically. A facility can add clinicians they have had positive experiences with to their Favorites list, thereby speeding up the staffing process.
- Local support: The app is straightforward for both facilities and clinicians. However, Nursa support is available 24/7 to assist with any issues.
- Integrated scheduling: The last thing a scheduler needs is another platform to monitor. This is why our app partners with scheduling platforms, allowing facilities to use our app’s basic functionality in the platforms they already use.
Use PRN staffing in your long-term recruitment strategy
Our app does not only offer short-term staffing solutions. It also provides medium- and long-term staffing solutions by connecting facilities with potential employees.
Our platform does not charge hire-away fees.
Facilities are free to offer PRN clinicians they meet through the app permanent positions without facing any charges—unlike with nurse staffing agencies.
This long-term staffing solution is one of the app’s top perks.
Often, after a drawn-out recruitment process, a clinician may decide they do not want the job, or a facility may decide the recruit is not an ideal candidate for the position. This implies a significant waste of resources for a facility.
However, when a facility is familiar with a clinician’s work, skill level, attitude, etc., offering that clinician a job is a well-informed decision. Likewise, a PRN nurse who accepts an employee position is already familiar with a facility’s work environment, team members, etc. Therefore, they are unlikely to regret their decision a mere months into their new position.
Best healthcare staffing app in Colorado Springs
Are you ready to try the best healthcare staffing app in Colorado Springs, CO?
Our app offers solutions for both hospital facility staffing and long-term care facility staffing.
Find the qualified clinicians your facility needs: skilled nursing, assisted living, medical-surgical, triage staffing, and more.
All you have to do is create a facility profile and request verification. After that, you can begin posting PRN jobs and adding credentialing details based on your facility’s preferences.
Sign up today to reap the benefits of flexible scheduling and the lowest-cost, reliable nurses.
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