Are you a director of nursing or HR manager in New Braunfels looking to fill nursing gaps quickly and stress-free?
Among the fastest-growing cities in the country, and one of the best places to live, New Braunfels attracts people seeking new opportunities. This growth is good news, but it also brings challenges, such as the need for more qualified nurses and healthcare providers.
New Braunfels, TX, requires flexible staffing solutions that adapt to the current needs of nursing directors (DONs) and HR managers to maintain proper nurse-to-patient ratios and provide quality care to the city’s residents.
This article offers an overview of the nursing workforce in New Braunfels, Texas. It introduces a game-changer to address the nursing shortage, helping facilities:
- Balance their workforce
- Preserve nurse well-being
- Continue providing quality care without budget strains
New Braunfels healthcare challenges
Being a fast-growing city can come with challenges, such as high turnover and vacancy rates that make it difficult to retain staff, provide quality care, and reduce burnout.
Here are the hospital turnover and vacancy rates in 2024, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services:
Vacancy
- Registered nurses (RNs): 16.4%
- Licensed vocational nurses (LVNs): 21.5%
- Nursing assistants (NAs): 14.3%
Turnover
- RNs: 23.2%
- LVNs: 21.1%
- NAs: 29.9%
Further insights into the nursing workforce
Here are the mean wages for nursing professionals in New Braunfels and supply-and-demand projections for Texas, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Annual mean wage
- RNs: $89,300
- LVNs: $60,800
- CNAs: $36,410
Supply and demand of RNs by 2030
- Supply: 253,770
- Demand: 271,920
Supply and demand of LVNs by 2030
- Supply: 52,720
- Demand: 58,150
These data highlight the difficulties schedulers, HR managers, and DONs face in recruiting and retaining staff while providing quality care and maintaining safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.
What are some solutions for facilities?
When working with staffing agencies, facilities go through long processes. These take valuable time and resources to fill open shifts due to unexpected call outs or absences.
The nursing shortage and increasing care demand create a need for more efficient staffing solutions and greater control over the contracting process.
Schedulers need partners who can back them up during crisis moments and help them fill shifts quickly.
Unexpected call outs can compromise quality care and fuel nurse burnout.
Tech-enabled staffing platforms
How do tech-enabled platforms adapt to the actual needs of DONs and HR managers?
Due to staffing shortages and the rapid population growth in the city, facilities need efficient ways to source nursing talent.
Having access to a nurse marketplace at your fingertips makes a difference by reducing time, providing more control over the contracting process, and identifying qualified clinicians ready to work.
Unlike staffing agencies, tech-enabled platforms let DONs have everything in one place—no paperwork or app-switching needed. With these platforms, facilities can preserve nurse well-being and provide quality care seamlessly, and find a balance between:
- In-house staff
- Float pools
- PRN clinicians
All of the above, plus no placement fees, make this type of platform the right fit for facilities’ new staffing strategies.
Regulatory compliance
Complying with regulations such as hours-per-resident-day (HPRD) requirements or Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) reporting can be challenging due to the nursing shortage.
However, there are more flexible ways for facilities to fill gaps and source talent, preparing for assessments and audits while ensuring quality care for their residents.
It is more manageable for facilities to face the nursing shortage by investing in a resilient nursing workforce that responds to disruptive moments without panicking or relying on overtime. To achieve this, facilities need to provide opportunities for nurses to decompress and feel supported.
With a mix of in-house staff and temporary clinicians, facilities can more easily comply with regulations and be prepared for daily contingencies.
Nursa, which charges $0 hire-away fees, helps facilities connect directly with a pool of talented clinicians and support regulatory compliance requirements.
Nursa in your staffing strategy
Our platform is a healthcare staffing solution that can help facilities achieve a positive labor cost variance without hire-away fees, overtime premiums, or other costs associated with in-house positions.
With Nursa, facilities have everything in 1 place:
- The platform handles credential verification, including background checks for every nurse who requests a shift.
- Nursa Billing Center provides facilities with a secure, centralized way to manage invoices, track payments, and monitor account activity in real time. Clear visibility reduces paperwork and frees teams to focus more on patient care.
- Facilities can create a Favorites bench of clinicians who have performed well on previous PRN shifts.
- Auto-Schedule lets facilities automatically approve and fill open shifts with clinicians from their “Favorites” list or those who meet customized screening requirements. The feature can be enabled or disabled.
- DONs or HR managers can save time with NIA Shift Creator (Nursa Intelligence Assistant), which helps facilities create and post shifts in seconds while staying fully in control. Use simple inputs like spoken requests, photos of handwritten notes, or uploaded spreadsheets, and NIA converts them into ready-to-post shifts.
- Nursa Support combines real human help with scalable digital resources. Facilities have access to on-the-ground local operations teams for hands-on support and staffing consultation. Go on a live chat with human operators for real-time assistance, and a robust library of online help articles supports both facilities and clinicians.
Relying on PRN clinicians, you can not only fill gaps in your schedule but also try-before-you-hire for permanent roles. With a “trial shift,” medical centers can see which clinician fits best with the organization's culture and dynamics.
A facility experience with our platform
Brookfield Health and Rehabilitation of Cascadia found that using Nursa enabled them to access a verified clinician pool for last-minute call outs or weekend shifts that were difficult to fill.
The facility reduced agency spend and overtime by integrating our platform into its workforce management. At first, Brookfield relied on staffing agencies. However, the bureaucratic process wasn’t helping, as Josh Clark, CEO of Brookfield, said:
“Agency staffing doesn’t provide an easy-to-access platform where I can easily request and schedule shifts, which is why we turned to Nursa.”
The facility’s clinicians experienced burnout relief with support from PRN nurses sourced through our marketplace, and the facility can fill open shifts as needed.
Optimize staffing with Nursa
New Braunfels is a fast-growing city that offers a high quality of life. As a city that needs to provide quality care while attracting a large number of new residents from across the country, the pressure on DONs to find qualified nurses for every shift increases.
That pressure shouldn't be just on HR managers, DONs, or schedulers. One great advantage of Nursa is that our platform optimizes staffing by connecting facilities and clinicians directly.
Our platform offers features that help facilities gain more control over the contracting process, reduce paperwork, and save time by integrating everything in one place—so facilities in New Braunfels can stay focused on providing quality care.
Join the growing number of facilities that are optimizing staffing with Nursa.
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