When hospital employees, such as nurses, are strained, burnout, and frustrated, something has to give. Usually, it falls onto the patients, so the care should be all-around fantastic, caring, and innovative. But when the nurses are worn thin, things will fall short.
How hospitals are trying to repair the broken system is through working with agencies to hire temporary help. These nurses help patients who may feel ignored and as if they slipped through the cracks. With the extra hands on deck, these nurses focus on the patients to ensure that they are cared for, their questions are answered, and they are happy. But what other ways do traveling nurses impact patient care?
5 Ways Traveling Nurses Impact Patient Care
There are many ways travel nurses impact patients’ care within healthcare providers such as hospitals and nursing homes. Lots of these places are turning to use agencies to ensure that their patients are handled with care and relieve some stress for their current staff. Yes, these nurses are on a short-term placement, but with their 3 to 13-week assignment, they can help the patients within that window.
Quality of Care
With adding travel nurses to the staff, fewer falls, fewer complaints from families of the patients and the patients themselves, and less death after surgical procedures. When there is more hands-on deck to pay attention to these patients, they don’t have to search for help. Once the patients ring that bell, there are more than enough hands to help.
Actual nurse staff now have time to do all their paperwork, inventory count, and online work, rather than running to each room when they need them. The only concern that all travel nurses have is the patients. There is no paperwork for them to do, no inventory count, and no online work. They are there to boost the quality of care, to ensure that the patients are happy, comfortable, and trusting of the hospital staff.
Cost
Because nurses are the main population of hospitals, they are the ones that take up the amount of operation dollars spent. It is cheaper for hospitals to work with agencies and hire their nurses than hiring directly for them. They save money on salaries, benefits packages, etc.
This money can be used to update hospitals, add the top technologies, add more studies on different illnesses, and give raises to the nurses and doctors who deserve them. When there is more wiggle room in a hospital’s budget, a lot can be done.
Staffing Shortage
Everyone knows that there is a staffing shortage with nurses. The talent pool is becoming thinner and thinner, where the active nurses within hospitals and nursing homes are working more than they should be. When these health care providers hire agencies, they can help with the gaps in coverage.
Rather than putting a nurse on so many patients that they can barely handle all of them, the agencies will staff accordingly so that they can relieve some of the pressure. Having a handful of patients is way more effective to help with patient care.
Improved Patient Satisfaction
These nurses are seasoned, experienced, and can handle situations that most nurses haven’t seen yet. So, they can handle pressure very effectively. When there are seasoned nurses on the floor, they can handle patients a lot easier than newer nurses.
Newer nurses may not have an idea to be personable; that isn’t taught in medical school, but the seasoned nurses have learned over the years how to be personable, caring, and effective.
Fighting Nurse Burnout
Nurses burning out is a prevalent thing, especially with a pandemic hovering over our heads. Everyone is working long hours, not many days off, sleeping in on-call rooms. It isn’t a pleasant time. But when healthcare providers work with agencies, they can lift the current staff’s pressure and relieve burnout easier.
Conclusion
Positively impacting patient care is the main reason many healthcare providers work with agencies. The main concern that hospitals need to keep an eye on is patient care. It is not okay ignoring patients because of the lack of help, patients getting hurt by getting up to get whatever they need, and patients feeling lonely. TLC Nursing can help hospitals and anyone looking to become a travel nurse. They are knowledgeable in this field, have an experienced staff, and willing to train and work with anyone available.
