By Erica Ronchetti

It’s no secret that the healthcare industry is becoming increasingly demanding for nurses and traveling nurses, who must now care for the rising numbers of aging baby boomers and other health care demanders.  In contrast, the number of prospective nurses and nursing students who will become professional nurses and travel nurses is decreasing, despite the growing community of people who require health care and medical assistance.  Travel nurse agencies have been a remedy for this widening gap between patients, nurses, and travel nurses.  They provide nursing staff for hospitals and other healthcare services, and fulfill both patients and facilities needs.

Many schools and universities are experiencing a significant shortage of students who are studying to become professional nurses.  There are insufficient numbers of these students compared to the increasing demands of the United States population and their projected healthcare needs.  Over past years, there has been little to no maintenance of nursing student enrollment levels, and now 73% of Americans acknowledge that this shortage of nurses is a concern, and one that is on the rise.

Companies like Travel Nurse Source and other travel nursing agencies have been developed to address this growing need for healthcare professionals and provide solutions for nurses who are interested in traveling and healthcare facilities who need to fill staffing gaps. Travel Nurse Source operates with the nursing shortage directly in mind, staffing hospitals and facilities across the country to prevent the worsening nursing shortage in the USA. Travel nurse agencies are not a new occurrence; they’ve been in existence for almost two decades with the aim to solve staffing shortages, mainly in facilities that have employee and population turnover based on the seasonal changes.

In light of the nursing shortage, pursuing a career as a travel nurse or finding travel nurse employment has become a good opportunity for stability and professional growth.  Travel nurses can travel all over the US and nursing assignments last from 90 days up to six months, depending on the specific contract.  The travel nursing job can be in a variety of states or regions and facilities, and that is up to the nurse to choose.  Salaries for nurses who choose a travel nursing career tend to be on average, higher then nurses who stay in one location or healthcare venue.  Excelling housing benefits go along with the competitive salary, as well as health insurance, retirement plans, and other benefits that travel nurse agencies offer.

Companies like Travel Nurse Source are indeed valuable assets for the healthcare industry.  To learn more about travel nursing jobs and travel nurse employment, visit our website!  Travel Nurse Source offers exciting travel nursing employment opportunities, such as travel nurse jobs Hawaii, California travel nursing, Florida travel nursing, New York travel nursing, and travel nursing in Alaska!

Erica Ronchetti is Account Manager for Travel Nurse Source, a recruiting company for traveling nurses.  Travel Nurse Source is affiliated with Allied Travel Careers, a recruiting company for traveling physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists.  For more information on what we do, please visit our websites.

By Erica Ronchetti

A travel nursing job is unlike any other form of business traveling assignment.  Generally, if you are traveling for any other business purpose, there is not much time for relaxation, sight-seeing, dining out, shopping, or other enjoyable activities.  You’d be expected to spend most of your trip sitting in on important business meetings or getting the latest information about your industry at a trade show or convention. Travel nursing is altogether different, as your job allows for plenty of free time to experience your destination’s beauty, culture, and unique charm. Why? Because when you accept a travel nursing job you actually live for an extended period of time in the area you select.

Another aspect of a travel nurse employment that nurses find enjoyable is the opportunity to combine travel nursing with a traveling mindset, specifically meeting new people.  Other nurses enjoy the challenges presented by working in different locations.  In addition to meeting new people and enjoying different locations, active travel nurses have the chance to experience many great nursing opportunities in many different facilities around the United States. By embarking upon a travel nurse career, you not only gain extremely valuable nursing experience in different settings and different working environments, but also begin to develop a broad mind set and excellent nursing skills.  Travel nursing will take you to some of the top medical facilities in the United States.  Many travel nurses feel it is important to share their skills, knowledge, and compassion with people from all over the country.  Seeing the country and making a difference in people’s lives, in addition to gaining a quality and diverse nursing education, are reasons to consider a travel nursing career and contact a recruiting agency.

A travel nursing career is the best idea for fulfilling your love for travel and love for nursing.  Popular destinations include California travel nursing, travel nurse jobs Hawaii, travel nursing Alaska, Florida travel nursing, and New York travel nursing.  During time away from the facility you work at, you can roam around and soak up local culture, shop, and experience fantastic local sporting events and entertainment.

Now is an excellent time to learn more about the many wonderful opportunities travel nursing has to offer you and your career.  Visit www.travelnursesource.com for more information.

Travel nurses, what other travel nursing advantages can you think of?

Erica Ronchetti is Account Manager for Travel Nurse Source, a recruiting company for traveling nurses. Travel Nurse Source is affiliated with Allied Travel Careers, a recruiting company for traveling physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists. For more information on what we do, please visit our websites.

By Erica Ronchetti

Before signing up to travel the United States as a travel nurse, there are several important things you may be interested to know. Travel nursing can be extremely rewarding as well as enjoyable; a paid vacation to the beaches of Hawaii and California is certainly appealing but before departing on your next travel nursing job, take a minute to read the following information.

Salary is very different from typical hospital employment.  Travel nurses are paid significantly higher hourly wages then staff nurses who work at hospitals.  The reason travel nurses are paid larger salaries is because of the “sacrifices” they make to uproot their lives and work away from their families and homes.   Placed in an attractive location, many nurses don’t see their travel nursing assignment as sacrifices, and many enjoy their days off enjoying gorgeous scenery, excellent weather, and interesting culture.  When negotiating salary with your travel nurse agency, make sure they are willing to negotiate the highest rate of pay before you sign any contracts to a travel nursing assignment.  Certainly don’t feel pressured to accept the first travel offer that comes your way; you may be able to find a better one.  It might be good to compare different agencies and select the one willing to assist your move, provide you with a competitive salary, and perhaps even a monthly housing stipend.

Here are some important questions to consider asking your travel nurse agency before starting a travel nursing assignment:

1.     Does the travel nurse agency I’m considering guarantee my travel assignment in writing?
2.    What hours will I be working?  Are these hours guaranteed?
3.    How often will I get paid?  (Weekly, bi-weekly, etc…)
4.    Will the travel nurse agency help me pay for my move?

Travel nurses with experience:  do you agree or disagree? If you’re an experienced travel nurse and can provide any additional information or useful questions novice travel nurses might need to know, don’t hesitate to post a response or comment.

Erica Ronchetti is Account Manager for Travel Nurse Source, a recruiting company for traveling nurses.  Travel Nurse Source is affiliated with Allied Travel Careers, a recruiting company for traveling physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists.  For more information on what we do, please visit our websites.

By Erica Ronchetti

If you’ve avoided travel nursing jobs because you were unwilling to leave your loved ones behind, then be sure to read this article.  Not only do travel nurses get to visit many exciting locations and meet new people all over the country, they can do so while earning a considerable salary.  Re-location can be pretty frequent as travel assignments typically run for about 13 weeks.  The good news is despite the relatively long  time span of assignments, many travel nurse agencies do take into account that nurses have families and are willing to work out arrangements that are accommodating.

If you have children, you can still be a successful travel nurse. There are even advantages to travel nursing that will positively affect your children’s lives, such as providing them the opportunity to experience many parts of the country.  While your children get to travel, your successful nursing career will provide you with an excellent salary and benefits.  Travel nursing salaries are usually 10%-15% higher than typical pay of regular staff nurses. In addition to the higher salary, recruiting agencies are sometimes able to provide free housing for your family, or assist you in locating additional rooms or alternative housing for family members.

Other agencies try to provide travel nurses with placements customized to their individual lifestyles and requirements, such as flexible shift times that allow them to spend more time with their families.  Often times travel nurses choose to home school their children and married couples who both travel have the option to arrange their work schedules so that one of them is home to take care of kids while the other is on a travel nursing assignment.  There are even some travel nurse jobs that last up to 9 months so that a child would be able to attend the same school for an entire year.  It’s possible that with some research and scheduling, a traveling nurse can have a great career while raising their family.

Due to the ongoing nursing shortage, there is a huge demand for qualified nurses nationwide. Many healthcare staffing agencies and travel nurse recruiting agencies are looking to hire qualified travel nurses to fill in staffing positions, and finding adequate housing for nurses and families is not a difficult task.  Extra needs and requirements, such as pets and larger spaces can easily be accommodated.  Don’t hesitate to learn more about travel nursing and the great benefits that go along with it:  great compensation, excellent health care coverage, and many others.  If you’re currently a travel nurse or would like to find out more information about travel nursing jobs, now is an excellent time to pursue this fast growing and popular health field.

Erica Ronchetti is Account Manager for Travel Nurse Source, a recruiting company for traveling nurses.  Travel Nurse Source is affiliated with Allied Travel Careers, a recruiting company for traveling physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists.  For more information on what we do, please visit our websites.

By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN

Aloha travel nurses! What is the only downside of a travel nursing job in Hawaii?  There’s too much to do on your days off!  Whether you catch a wave, catch some rays or catch a scenic helicopter ride over some of the world’s most gorgeous scenery, it’s difficult to accurately characterize a travel nursing assignment in Hawaii as “work.”
The Hawaiian Islands are technically in the tropics but, thanks to the constant easterly trade winds, residents and visitors avoid the humidity.  Temperatures on the islands hover in the 80’s year round, making it one of the world’s top tourist destinations in the summer and wintertime alike.

Quality health care is needed by the tourists, residents and the 1.3% of the state’s total population that is made up of military personnel.  As of May 2007, the average RN salary was $74,220 (keep in mind that travel nurses usually earn above average salaries for assignments). The Hawaii Workforce Informer projected a 16.3% increase in the number of nurses needed from 2008 to 2009. The greatest projected increase was in nursing and residential care facilities, undoubtedly due to the aging population of patients in Hawaii and across the country. Of all the islands, Oahu has the densest population (one million residents in 597 square miles) and therefore the most staffing needs.

On a much smaller scale in comparison, Hawaii has implemented some of the same health care system goals the current administration dreams of making reality on a national scale. 95% of Hawaii’s residents are ensured, due to the policy requiring employers to insure any employees working 20 hours per week or more. The state also boasts an emphasis on preventative health care that keeps medical costs in check.

Want to learn more about travel nurse jobs in the Aloha State? Contact a travel nurse agency recruiter today.

Hawaii nurse licensing questions: http://hawaii.gov/dcca/areas/pvl/boards/nursing

Christine Whitmarsh is a Registered Nurse with a BSN from the University of Rhode Island. She is a freelance health journalist and medical writer and a contributor to Travel Nurse Source and Allied Travel Careers.

By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN

Most “top hospital”, “best hospital” or similar research surveys generally have the best interests of the patients in mind, as they should since patients are the reasons hospitals exist in the first place. However, the connection between happy patients and satisfied caregivers is unmistakable. There are many good reasons why nurses and travel nursing jobs routinely gravitate toward finalists on various best hospital surveys. The lists are based on specific methodology and sorted by a wide variety of categories so that both patients and nurses find the facility that best meets their needs. Ranking criteria include a hospital’s ability to handle both routine and complicated cases in various specialty areas. While most patients and nurses are limited to researching hospitals in their area, travel nurses have the benefit of using the lists to choose preferred locations of future assignments in their specialty area.

Here are some entries from U.S. News & World Report’s 2008 “Best Hospitals” list in some of the most popular travel nursing states. The star means that the hospital earned “honor roll” status by scoring high in overall excellence in six or more specialties. Most of the top hospitals are in California, where it’s no secret that nurses and travel nurses are currently in great demand..

California Travel Nursing

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, L.A*: Top specialty areas are pediatrics, respiratory disorders and orthopedics

Stanford Hospital and Clinics*: Stanford earns high specialty scores in the areas of geriatrics, neurology & neurosurgery and orthopedics.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, L.A*: The well-known healing center for Hollywood celebrities specializes in oncology, gynecology, geriatrics and kidney disease.

Texas Travel Nursing

University of Texas MD. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston: Highest scores in gynecology

Methodist Hospital, Houston: Highest ranked specialties include geriatrics, orthopedics and oncology

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas: Gynecology, Kidney Disease and Urology

Florida Travel Nursing

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa: Oncology

Shands at the University of Florida, Gainseville: Oncology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Kidney Disease

Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach: Neurology, Neurosurgery, Geriatrics

Christine Whitmarsh is a Registered Nurse with a BSN from the University of Rhode Island. She is a freelance health journalist and medical writer and a contributor to Travel Nurse Source and Allied Travel Careers.

By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN

Just as little kids mull over the possibilities of what they want to be when they grow up, nursing students custom design their dream career. A few years on the med-surg floor first, then perhaps a move into the ER or ICU, followed by a return trip back to school for a Master’s degree and later on a nurse practitioner career. Nurses with a wandering spirit are more likely to map out a career as a travel nurse, combining medical specialties with coveted work destinations. The beauty of travel nursing jobs is that they are listed the same way. Are you a skier or a surfer? Would you rather be a travel ER nurse in Denver or traveling CCU RN in California? Are you into bright lights big city or the quiet relaxation of a smaller town setting? Your dream career might be as an ICU nurse in Dallas or a labor and delivery nurse in Alaska. If you’re having trouble making up your mind then travel nursing is definitely the right field for you. Short assignments and diverse staffing needs around the country make indecisiveness a perfectly acceptable trait in a travel nurse. How many other fields is this true for?

In a tight economy and even tighter job market, few people have the luxury of custom designing their dream job. Even with the budding nursing shortage, travel nurses have to be savvy about signing with the traveling nurse agency that best represents their interests and consistently following up on potential assignments.

If you need reassurance, remember that a career in nursing still has more flexibility and options than most other fields of work right now. Nobody is ever handed their dream job on a silver platter, especially in tough times. But that doesn’t mean you need to stop dreaming and stop seeking the nursing career that you mapped out for yourself in nursing school. As a travel nurse you might even get from point A to point B a little bit faster.

Christine Whitmarsh is a Registered Nurse with a BSN from the University of Rhode Island. She is a freelance health journalist and medical writer and a contributor to Travel Nurse Source and Allied Travel Careers.

By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN

Literacy is no longer exclusively a problem for teachers to address. Nurses and especially travel nurses who travel to certain regions and communities are also facing language and health literacy issues while treating patients.

The importance of reading the fine print has been ingrained in the mind of anyone who has ever read a contract. But for ailing or injured patients and their loved ones, taking the time to fully understand what they are signing, especially in the ER or pre-operatively, pales in priority to getting well. Unfortunately the legalities and contractual intricacies of healthcare leave little room for flexibility and patient sympathy in these situations. Even if they do not fully understand what they are signing, once they sign on the dotted line patients are usually held liable for the legal and insurance policy consequences of what they are signing. Several incidences of patient outcry when it came time to face those consequences, have led providers and administrator to start aggressively addressing the issue of “health literacy” in patients. Health literacy educational forums are starting to pop up around the country for both patients and also for nurses, to teach them how much or little their patients really understand about what’s going on around them during a medical emergency.

In certain geographic areas, where English is often the patient’s second language, the issue of healthcare literacy is compounded by language literacy. Travel nurses who have worked in such communities, such as Texas, California, and Arizona may have a unique understanding of what it’s like to care for a patient while also handling a language barrier. Healthcare literacy along with regional ESL-related issues requires the travel nurse to have a heightened awareness of their patients’ level of comprehension. The bottom line is that when a patient is sick all that’s on their mind is getting well again. Nurses and travel nurses are in an excellent position to make sure that once the patient is well again, they won’t be faced with the fallout from consenting to treatment in the first place.

Christine Whitmarsh is a Registered Nurse with a BSN from the University of Rhode Island. She is a freelance health journalist and medical writer and a contributor to Travel Nurse Source and Allied Travel Careers.

By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN

LIVE… BREAKING NEWS…

How many times have you watched a tragedy unfold live on the news in a town nowhere near yours? Is it just me or have these type of events dominated the news channels quite a bit lately? As the tearful and traumatized survivors and witnesses mill about in the background behind the on-scene reporter, desperately seeking direction and ultimately comfort, it is a nurse’s basic instinct to want to jump through the television set and try to help. Let’s face it, if we didn’t have the caregiver gene we would not be drawn to this profession.

When travel nurses are dispatched to a new travel nursing assignment in a new community, usually far from their own, it is important to be aware of recent community traumas. In addition to the high profile events that make the national news, there may be other recent occurrences that have shaken the community. As nurses, we know that a “traumatic event” is entirely determined by the people who experience it – directly or indirectly. Arriving for a travel nursing assignment in a community that is actively experiencing or recovering from a trauma, whether in the form of serial crime, a devastating natural disaster or other tragedy is an opportunity for the travel nurse to take part in the healing process. As an objective outsider, the travel nurse can employ all the tools of therapeutic communication where and when they are needed the most. Travel nursing is an excellent opportunity to connect with individuals in all areas of the country, each with different needs, each experiencing the unfolding of a different life story.

Travel Nurses: Have you ever witnessed or taken part in the healing of a community following a trauma, while on assignment?

Christine Whitmarsh is a Registered Nurse with a BSN from the University of Rhode Island. She is a freelance health journalist and medical writer and a contributor to Travel Nurse Source and Allied Travel Careers.

By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN

Now is the time to review your travel nursing agency’s policy on overtime along with your current assignment contract. One of the temporary fixes for the nursing shortage that appears to be benefiting both staff and travel nurses is increased opportunities for working lucrative overtime hours (double time in some rare cases). Since the pay scale for traveling nurses is predominantly higher than it is for staff nurses overtime has the potential of catapulting the travel nurse into an entirely new salary bracket – the six figure kind.

If you’re looking for assignment destinations, travel nursing assignments in California are among the highest paying nursing positions in the country. California is among the states with the greatest need for nurses to staff the state’s abundance of hospitals. At some hospitals in the Sacramento area, for instance, overtime rates, take effect after 8 hours.

Questions about a hospital’s overtime policy are some of the most important ones to ask your recruiting contact prior to starting a new assignment.  It is also important to remember that hospitals are facing the same economic downturn as the rest of us. Asking about a hospital’s overtime policy, in the midst of your other questions, is entirely different than “demanding” overtime pay. Discuss the matter of working extra shifts and how you will be reimbursed (hospital or agency) with your travel nurse recruiter. Your agency can also assist you with the rest of your pre-assignment checklist, including important questions to ask your new nurse manager.

Travel Nurses: How do you handle the issue of overtime hours and reimbursement? What kinds of experiences, positive and negative, are you experiencing in regards to overtime hours to help with the nursing shortage?

Christine Whitmarsh is a Registered Nurse with a BSN from the University of Rhode Island. She is a freelance health journalist and medical writer and a contributor to Travel Nurse Source and Allied Travel Careers.