Healthcare Staffing Solutions

Employee of the year awards are normally won by tenured employees. Occasionally a newer employee may win.

However, it’s unheard of for a contractor to be named employee of the year. And that is exactly what happened when Rhoda, a PassportUSA nurse on a temp-to-perm assignment at a 400-bed hospital in the Midwest, was given the award this past month.

PassportUSA, headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, recruited Rhoda, who received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from a university in the Philippines, and assisted her through the U.S. immigration and nursing licensure process.

Rhoda then participated in a phone interview with the hospital and accepted an assignment in their medical-surgical unit that began in February, 2017. Now, just 20 months after her first day at work, she was voted to be the employee of the year by the facility’s staff.

How did this happen? Do Rhoda’s peers even know she isn’t even an employee?

Yes, and the staff nurses and leadership don’t mind a bit.

Rhoda and most other PassportUSA RNs are viewed as full-time staffers by the healthcare organizations to which they are assigned. It’s all in the way the unique workforce solution is implemented, the length of the contract, and the partnership that exists between PassportUSA and its clients.

“It has been an absolute pleasure to have Rhoda as part of our team! In her 20 months here, she has won over her co-workers and anyone that has met her along the way. Rhoda received a Leaders Award which placed her in the running for the Employee of the Year. She won Employee of the Year by a landslide, which is unprecedented as a contracted associate. We are proud to announce Rhoda as the hospital’s Employee of the Year!,” stated an HR team member at the hospital.

Katie Glaser, PassportUSA VP of International Operations, sums the victory up to the following. “We partner with our client healthcare organizations to provide a temp-to-perm nurse staffing solution with an impressive 86% conversion rate to direct employment. This distinction really shapes how our clients think about their investment in our nurses.”

“To aid in retention we make sure our assigned nurses become ingrained in the communities in which they live and work. That means assisting them and their families with housing, transportation, schooling, and places of worship at the start of the contract.

In summary, we don’t treat them like short term contract labor, so neither do the staff nurses and administrators at their assigned healthcare facilities.

“In summary, we don’t treat them like short term contract labor, so neither do the staff nurses and administrators at their assigned healthcare facilities. We have even swayed the mindset of several facilities focused on the wholesale elimination of contract labor because they see our unique workforce solution as a means-to-an-end in an otherwise tight nurse labor market,” continued Glaser.

Rhoda’s nomination included the following. “Aside from all of her professional accomplishments, Rhoda’s most notable attributes are her kindness and compassion towards others. She became a part of our family instantaneously. Her outgoing bubbly personality makes her easy to love. She goes out of her way to advocate for her patients. She is a true example of our mission, which is to treat each patient as if they were a member of our family. We are proud to work alongside of Rhoda!”

Rhoda became a part of our family instantaneously . . . She is a true example of our mission, which is to treat each patient as if they were a member of our family.

PassportUSA is proud of Rhoda and to offer a workforce solution that is having a positive impact on the quality of U.S. healthcare and the lives of countless patients across the USA.

Shown below are the most recent PassportUSA nurses that have received or been nominated for a Daisy Award by colleagues or patients at their assigned U.S. healthcare facility. Nothing speaks more to the high quality, compassionate care that our nurses provide than being a recipient of the Daisy Award.

(Adapted from an article originally appearing on Reuters, October 21, 2017)

The nursing shortage hit West Virginia’s Charleston Area Medical Center at the worst time.

The non-profit healthcare system is one of the state’s largest employers and sits in the heart of economically depressed coal country. It’s struggling with fewer privately insured patients, cuts in government reimbursement and higher labor costs to attract a shrinking pool of nurses.

To keep its operations intact, Charleston Medical is spending this year $12 million on visiting or “travel” nurses, twice as much as three years ago. It had no need for travel nurses a decade ago.

“I’ve been a nurse 40 years, and the shortage is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Ron Moore, who retired in October from his position as vice president and chief nursing officer for the center. “It’s better to pay a traveler than to shut a bed,” he said.

Hospitals nationwide face tough choices when it comes to filling nursing jobs. They are paying billions of dollars collectively to recruit and retain nurses rather than risk patient safety or closing down departments, according to Reuters interviews with more than 20 hospitals, including some of the largest U.S. chains.

In addition to higher salaries, retention and signing bonuses, they now offer perks such as student loan repayment, free housing and career mentoring, and rely more on foreign or temporary nurses to fill the gaps.

The cost nationwide for travel nurses alone nearly doubled over three years to $4.8 billion in 2017, according to Staffing Industry Analysts, a global advisor on workforce issues.

The burden falls disproportionately on hospitals serving rural communities, many of them already straining like the Charleston Area Medical Center.

These hospitals must offer more money and benefits to compete with facilities in larger metropolitan areas, many of them linked to well-funded universities, interviews with hospital officials and health experts show.

Not Like Other Nursing Shortages

PassportUSA supplied CAMC with internationally-trained nurses to reduce use of travel RNs, reduce costs, and improve nurse retention rates. Along the way their proportion of BSN-prepared nurse climbed as well.

Nursing shortages have occurred in the past, but the current crisis is far worse. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be more than a million registered nurse openings by 2024, twice the rate seen in previous shortages.

PassportUSA supplied CAMC with internationally-trained nurses to reduce use of travel RNs, reduce costs, and improve nurse retention rates. Along the way their proportion of BSN-prepared nurse climbed as well.

A major driver is the aging of the baby boomer generation, with a greater number of patients seeking care, including many more complex cases, and a new wave of retirements among trained nurses.

Industry experts, from hospital associations to Wall Street analysts, say the crisis is harder to address than in the past. A faculty shortage and too few nursing school slots has contributed to the problem.

Hospitals seek to meet a goal calling for 80 percent of nursing staff to have a four-year degree by 2020, up from 50 percent in 2010. They also face more competition with clinics and insurance companies that may offer more flexible hours.

Healthcare experts warn that the shortfall presents risks to patients and providers. Research published in August in the International Journal of Nursing Studies found that having inadequate numbers of registered nurses on staff made it more likely that a patient would die after common surgeries.

Smaller hospitals find it much harder to compete in this climate. More than 40 percent of rural hospitals had negative operating margins in 2015, according to The Chartis Center for Rural Health.

U.S. HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS: If you are looking for a cost-effective, temp-to-perm nurse staffing solution such as described in this article, please connect with our Business Development Team.