Hospitals Having Trouble Retaining Staff Nurses
By Christine Whitmarsh The national shortage of nurses has definitely been making headlines lately, as the media works to cover the staffing challenge and possible solutions from all angles. An Associated Press article today discussed what hospitals are doing to retain new and veteran nurses. The article discussed how, on average, 1 in 5 “new grads” quit their hospital nursing jobs within the first year. Nurse managers and experts in...
Hospital Execs Grateful for Nurses
By Christine Whitmarsh I recently had the opportunity to interview chief financial officers at several California hospitals for a magazine article I was writing. The subject of discussion was how the country’s, and specifically that state’s, economic challenges are affecting hospital bottom lines. One thing that struck me, and which as a nurse I definitely appreciated, was that regardless of the economic challenges their hospitals are...
Will Travel Nursing Benefit from Mandated Nurse-to-Patient Ratios?
A bill is being considered in the Pennsylvania state legislature that would mandate specific nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals. Legislation currently in place in PA states that hospitals and medical facilities provide “sufficient numbers of personnel to provide nursing care to meet the needs of all residents.” The pending legislation would specify the number of nurses required for each patient in hospitals and acute...
New Travel Nursing Job; New Procedures
By Christine Whitmarsh, RN, BSN One of the traditional challenges faced by the travel nurse, was (and to some degree still is) learning the policies, procedures, charting systems, terminology and the general “lay of the land” of new hospitals when they arrive. A travel nursing career means learning new patient care procedures, equipment, medication policies and equipment quickly. The good travel nurse knows how to rise to the...
Introducing Our New Travel Nurse Source Blog Contributor
Hello fellow nurses! My name is Christine Whitmarsh and I’m pleased to be the newest addition to the Travel Nurse Source team as a blogger here on the site. Here is a little about me so you can associate a name with a person. I earned my Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from the University of Rhode Island. I think I was the only nursing major who was also a music minor. In light of the steadily advancing practice of complementary...
Healthcare Staffing Network: Loyal Travel Nurses a Key to Stability and Success
The following article was contributed by Janet Fikany, senior recruiter for Healthcare Staffing Network (HSN), a member of the Travel Nurse Source network of agencies. It’s clear that nursing is still one of the biggest growth industries today, and there are now forecasted projections saying that the shortage of nurses could very well approach 29% by the year 2020. If, in fact, our nation intends to achieve measurable, affordable,...