By Aman Kidwai
Workplaces Editor
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Join Newsweek on Wednesday, November 19, at 2 p.m. ET for “Traveler to Teammate: Becoming a Hospital Where Nurses Choose to Stay,” a webinar on managing nursing teams and reducing the use of contingent staffing.
Register here for "Traveler to Teammate: Becoming a Hospital Where Nurses Choose to Stay" with Dr. Regina Foley, David Rutherford and Dr. Vikas Saini.
An over-reliance on travel nurses represents a financial challenge and a cultural one, and is a representation of deeper problems around the hospital’s inability to hire, attract and retain enough full-time nursing staff.
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This panel will focus on the underlying causes of the issue and how to address them. It will include strategies for converting travel staff to full-time and maintaining strong culture and retention to avoid understaffing.
Moderated by Newsweek editor Aman Kidwai, the panelists are Dr. Regina Foley, chief nursing executive and chief clinical transformation and integration officer at Hackensack Meridian Health; David Rutherford, MSN, RN, senior advisor, HR Transformation at OhioHealth; and Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute.
Rutherford has been at OhioHealth for more than 20 years and has presented on this topic at the HR Healthcare conference in Boston, sharing how they reduced their contract nurse headcount significantly. As a clinician serving in the HR Chief-of-Staff role, he supports workforce planning and ensures a healthcare-centric direction for OhioHealth leadership.
In May, Dr. Foley was appointed to a newly created position, adding President, Specialty Hospitals and Clinical Services to her title at Hackensack Meridian Health. She took on responsibility for the overall strategic direction, operational performance and clinical excellence of all specialty hospitals and clinical specialty services across the health system.
Dr. Saini leads a nonpartisan think tank whose mission is to advance a more affordable, effective and fair healthcare system. A clinical cardiologist and former Harvard Medical School faculty member, he oversees the Lown Institute’s research into medical overuse, patient medical debt, social responsibility and other hospital management issues.
These panelists note that the travel nurses were often exceptional clinicians, and crucial to hospitals staying afloat, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. As nursing shortages grew and burnout drove people away from frontline health care roles, and with a big wave of retirements ongoing and expected, they emphasize that explaining and developing the value of being part of the team, including benefits, career opportunities and variety in clinical assignments.
“I believe that many nurses leave to travel to control the working environment, to control their schedules. What is the root of the problem? Lack of resources to provide a safe environment...no consistent communication from leaders, no significant effort to retain experienced staff, and high nurse/patient ratios…Focusing on individual nurse resiliency puts the responsibility on the nurse and not on how the organization can support nurse efforts,” an NIH paper stated in 2022.
Across the country, nurses and other health care workers are going on strike in protest of working conditions. Just in the last week, nurses in California and Michigan have hit the picket lines.
It's clear that the travel nurse job represents an attractive alternative to being a full-time staff nurse, especially for those who feel that they are not being treated well. Travel nurses are paid more and experience an alluring degree of flexibility as they accept assignments around the country.
Rutherford and Foley note that their job has been to emphasize the value of being on staff, and encourage hospital leadership to invest in better pay and working conditions for nurses in order to reduce the reliance on travel or agency hires, with a clear financial incentive to do so based on the high spend of contract nurses.
Be sure to register here for "Traveler to Teammate: Becoming a Hospital Where Nurses Choose to Stay" with Dr. Regina Foley, David Rutherford and Dr. Vikas Saini.
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