Travel Nurse

STRIKE UPDATES ( we are neutral when it comes to the concept strike nursing. We simply provide information and resources.)

California Strike (11/10/07)-

TRAVEL ADVICE COLUMN
from our travel expert Shalon Kearney:
author of Hitting the road: a guide to travel nursing.

Shalon has 10 years travel experience and has worked on the business end of travel nursing as well. You are welcome to send her questions you have always wondered about, but were too afraid to ask or didn't know who to go to. She prides herself on being real (talking about the real story) and that is what we are about. We are here to give you the truth about travel nursing. All the good and the bad.

Email comments - You can comment, share similar stories or additional information. We all want to hear what you have to say. Please specify the topic you are commenting on.

The Medical Banner Exchange

What are the average rates for travelers nowadays? 2008

Let's see....Travelers out there, how much money are you making on your current assignment per hour (not including what you make in housing reimbursement or other benefits)?

15-20 (0) 0%
21-26 (7) 10%
27-32 (22) 31%
33-38 (22) 31%
39-44 (5) 7%
40+ (14) 20%

Total Votes: 70

Looking at these results, it would be safe to say that over half the travelers (61%) are making anywhere from 27 to 38 dollars an hour with another 20% making more than 40 dollars an hour. This doesn't include all the extra pay they get for their housing and travel expenses. Not to mention the tax benefits.

As a Nurse Recruiting Specialist for Emerald Health Services, Sebastian Hitzig has taken his passion for recruiting and helping others to help Nurses find work at Hospitals all over California as well as Florida. Sebastian claims that it is his way of giving back to the Nurses who gave so freely to him.

In 1995, after stepping on a toothpick and getting a Staph Infection in his foot, Sebastian was rushed to the Hospital with one of the most severe cases of Bacterial Endocarditis that many had ever seen. He would spend 93 days in the Hospital and would be very lucky to receive a second chance. In 1996, after finally feeling as though the worst was behind him, Sebastian would suffer a Sudden Cardiac Arrest while working out at a local gym. Six Minutes after his heart stopped beating it was restarted by an Automated External Defibrillator. Sebastian now wears an Internal Defibrillator.

Since 1996, Sebastian has been in amazing shape and actually claims that he feels better now than he ever has before. "They say that you don't realize how much you will miss something until you lose it, and that is how I feel about my health." Sebastian has worked for a major medical company, Medtronic, twice as both their Spokesperson as well as their Recruitment Specialist with their Diabetes Division.

But He is the happiest with Emerald. "I am amazed at how lucky I am to work for this Company. The owner really cares about his employees as well as the nurses that work with us. We are very proactive about solving any issue that may appear, have an amazing Housing as well as Clinical team that gets the nurse ready for any assignment that he or she may be preparing to take.

Sebastian may be reached at sebastianh@emeraldhs.com , or on his work phone which is 800-917-5055 ext 166.

Shalon Kearney, a seasoned traveler, shares her personal experience of why she traveled.

I have traveled for just about all these reasons at some time or another, says Shalon. For example,.....
I took my first assignment to Arizona for pure adventure. My fiancé had past away and settling down was the last thing I wanted to do. I never realized how beautiful the desert could be. I spent a great deal there taking long hikes, going to the grand canyon, visiting art museums in Sedona, and gambling in vegas. I crossed paths with another traveler named Linda. Somehow our paths lead us in the same direction for most of my travels. For instance.....

A company made an offer I couldn't refuse. I decided to go to Philadelphia for the money. It turns out that my friend Linda was heading that direction too. She lived in NJ just on the outskirts of Phili. Linda worked per diem at a local hospital in NJ in the summers where her family and friends were. Then in the winters she traveled to get away from the cold and her daily routine. I am glad I had a friend there because I was afraid to leave my apartment at first. Living in a high rise in downtown Philadelphia was quite a shock to me being a country girl from Texas. There were so many homeless people on the streets. By the end of my assignment I actually hopped over the homeless on my jog to work. Although I would want to live in Philadelphia, it was a great learning experience and the money was great tool.

In general, I made the same amount of money working 6 months out of the year than I did full time as a permanent nurse. The other six months I spent traveling abroad and visiting friends.

When you travel, you feel so free and independent. For me, the feeling of independence is what keeps me traveling. Once you get used to mapping out your own life.....you just don't want someone telling you when you can take vacation. As a traveler.....you tell them where you want to work and when you are available. That is a good feeling.

I did stop traveling for awhile though. I went back to school for my masters in nursing and built a house. By the time I was finished, I was facing major burnout. I felt like my life was all work and no play. I sold my house and this time I traveled to prevent burnout. I had always wanted to see Alaska. It was just what I needed. During my Alaska assignment, I spent a lot of time pondering what I would rather be doing rather than nursing. Ironically, all my pondering lead me to write a book on travel nursing.

While writing the book, I still had to work as a nurse so I took an assignment to California for career advancement. I started working for a travel company on the business end. The more I worked in the business world, the more I appreciated nursing. I fell in love with nursing all over again.

While many nurses use traveling as a way to relocate or find a place to live.....I never felt attached to any one place. I loved every place I went for its uniqueness, but something told me to stay in California. By the time I finished the book, I had said goodbye to the business world. This would have been a logical time to move on. But this time......I listened to my intuition. I went back to Texas, unloaded my storage, and sent my most precious things back to California. I wasn't even thrilled with where I was living in California. I told my friends.....I didn't know why I was staying, but I was going to stay until the feeling went away. Soon after I sent my things to California, I discovered my reason. I met my husband. We now live in Santa Rosa California and just had a baby girl, Asian, who I have with me today. As soon as she gets old enough we plan on traveling in the summers. Why? To provide balance to our life.

If you want to travel, my advice is to evaluate why you want to travel, know your tax benefits before you go, travel safely, and most of all when no reasons make any sense.....trust your intuition.

Shalon Kearney, RN, MSN- authore of Hitting the Road: a guide to travel nursing.

Compassionate Caring Program
A new and effective program is sweeping across the U.S. Lois Greenwood-Audant Ph.D., (director of VITEC,a popular business training center at Maui Community College), has customized numerous training programs in the field of service for over 10 years. Recently, a local nursing home requested she put her abilities to use at their facility. They needed help. She worked with them for 2 years and developed a compassionate caring program that was so effective that the concept is spreading fast.
The nursing home experienced (within 1 year of the program):

The program is very intensive. She not only teaches the program, but she works with management to maintain the concepts after the training. She also, trains nurse manager and others in the facility to teach the program. This way the concept can continue to live and be effective in the facility once it is introduced. Finally, she will work with nursing homes to develop effective measurement tools to measure their progress and conditions (if they aren't already in place).

Anyone interested in implementing this program in their facility can email lois@travelnursingcentral.com.

Find other travelers
Meet members section is meant for travelers to meet and exchange information. A way of bringing travelers together. You can use this site to get together with other travelers in your area.
Also, if you are wanting to travel to a specific location, consider finding a nurse located in that area. Even if that nurse is not a traveler at this time, they should be able to tell you what travel companies tend to staff travelers at their hospital. This can save you a great deal of searching, plus you will know someone when you get there.

2. The success of Travelnursingcentral.com

Travelnursingcentral.com is 4 years old now. The site was designed specifically for traveling healthcare professionals to fill in the gaps as far as services for travelers, resources, support, and information. It's success depends greatly on its members. We pride ourselves on being an independent site and hope to become the largest independent site on the net for travelers. This means that the information we provide is not monitored by a company that only wants to present one side of travel nursing. We present the true story. Our primary clients are travelers.

The membership is completely free. You will not be added to a mailing list or receive tons of junk mail Your participation..... once a member, is crucial because much of the information comes from your input and opinions. Together everyone can learn from each other. We can essentially revolutionize the industry together.

Also, many great services are available to you at no cost that will make your life easier. You have everything to gain.

We just added the forum for you. Please be patient with us while we figure out how to work and manage it.

4. Statistics for travelers

8. Tax Tips for Traveling Expenses
When you are doing your taxes this year. Find out what the standard federal mileage rate is ___cents per mile for the year. This will help you do your taxes because you can deduct the remaining amount that was unpaid. For example, if your company only paid you 25 cents per mile for your travels to and from assignments and the standard mileage rate was 36 cents per mile, you will be able to deduct an additonal amount (11 cents per mile) on your taxes for every mile you traveled to and from various assignments.

9. What benefits are most important to Travelers
I have to say. Those of you who receive HT magazine, must agree that they have really improved the quality of their magazine over the years. It is refreshing to finally see statistics regarding travelers being collected and reported. For so long, healthcare travel was sort of an abstract idea most didn't know anything about. Now traveling is becoming an established career option with its own set of statistical data etc. The following is a summary of the HT survey results.

According to Bobby Harrison in HT magazine November 2002 Vol 10 No4, travelers regard bonuses (especially sign-on bonuses) and continuing education as the top two benefits they consider most important and over half of the travelers wanted their own private housing.

What utitlities are companies paying for nowadays? Well, the majority of travelers say that their electricity, water and gas were paid for by their company and 33% said their companies paid for utility security deposits. This is much better than it used to be.

Many travelers are wanting to be paid weekly by direct deposit and have availability of overtime in addition to guaranteed hours. As far as discounts..... hotel, air, and car rental discounts were most highly rated. Furthermore, most travelers elected CASH as their number one award program over vacation plans and prizes etc.

As the nursing shortage increases and healthcare travel becomes more established, companies are extending their benefit packages.

It is interesting that while HT magazine received 2,475 responses to their survey, only 24% of those respondents currently traveled or had traveled in the past. The rest (76%) of the respondents wanted to travel. Most of these respondents were single (only 61%) caucasian (80%)women (83%) with children (58%) between the ages of 25 to 54 years of age.

Why do you think more people are not traveling .....who want to travel?

10. How bad is the nursing shortage and where is it the worst?
It is no secret that a nursing shortage is present and here to stay for some time due to many factors such as: the aging population, retiring nurses, additional career options for women etc.............
However, is the nursing shortage equally effecting everyone at the same global level or is there geographical differences? Recent surveys are showing a geographical difference in the supply and demand of nurses. While the nursing shortage is effecting everyone, the West seems to have been most effected.

Once again, in HT magazine did a great job reporting more statistical information regarding travelers in their HT November 2002 vol.10 No.4 issue. According to Ann Ericksen, the American Organization of Nurse Executives(AONE) also did a recent hospital survey. The results revealed institutions nationwide operating with an average of 10.2 percent RN vacancy rates and more than one in 7 are trying to manage with vacancy rates as high as 20 percent.

Where are hospitals having the most problems? It appears that the West is reporting the greatest "staffing problems" and the midwest reporting the least. This doesn't suprise me when the results also show that only 68% of thehospitals in the West are actually using travelers and agency, while 72% of the Northeast hospitals use travelers. It looks as though the west needs to recruit more travelers.
This leaves me wondering. Why aren't Westerners using more travelers then they are? Do travelers not want to go to the area for some reason? Is the money not good enough? Are they not trying to recruit enough and get by with less? Is this why there are so many nursing strikes in the West? Please post any opinions you have about this topic on the message board.

13. Latest Visa info for foreign nurses to U.S.
Source: This information is provided by:
SHUSTERMAN'S IMMIGRATION UPDATE is the most popular e-mail newsletter regarding U.S. immigration laws and procedures with over 40,000 subscribers located in more than 140 countries. Published by the Law Offices of Carl Shusterman, One Wilshire Building, 624 South Grand Avenue, Suite 1608, Los Angeles, California, 90017.
Phone: (213) 623-4592
To subscribe, type in your name and e-mail address at shusterman.com and click on "Subscribe".

What is going on in the Travel Industry
In order to stay ahead, I believe it is a good idea to occasionally step back and take a look at the industry and where it is heading. Sometimes, doing this helps direct you in your decision making in the future. Recently, I spoke with a recruiter that had been around awhile and he provided insights into what has happened over the last few years in the travel industry.

He explained that several years ago there used to only be a few travel nursing companies that were considered major players in the industry. As more and more health care professionals began to travel more companies became major players. You had about "20 players he said, then a few smaller companies." Now, from what he understands, "there are around 300 travel companies out there." Many of them are considered major players. The "players" are becoming more and more equal. The competition is getting fierce.

In trying to deal with all the competition, the hospitals have resorted to forming consortiums. This means the hospitals are grouping together and setting the rules. In there group they decide which companies they will do contracts with and how much they will pay them. In other words, they are starting to set the pricing rather than negotiating with every travel company individually. The travel companies must agree with the pricing in order to stay a part of the elite group and in order to do business with not just that one hospital, but the group of hospitals in the consortium. This section of the industry is virtually non-competitive. The agencies almost become a staffing office for the hospitals.

Therefore, right now we have a dichotomy between the non-competitive world of hospital consortium and the competitive world outside of the hospital consortiums. Will this dichotomy remain or will one of the worlds become dominate? In an effort to cut costs, more and more hospitals may form consortiums. Then it will be up to the travelers to come together and set the limits on how much money they are willing to work for. Regardless, what happens.... changes happen slow enough for us to adapt and travelers are good at that.

How do traveling nurses feel they are treated by permanent staff?

In general, how receptive do you feel permanent hospital staff are toward travelers?

very receptive (friendly) (5) 28%
cautious (3) 17%
they tolerate travelers, but keep them on the outside (8) 44%
rude at times (1) 6%
mostly resentful and unfriendly (1) 6%

Visiting Family During the Holidays

As a travel nurse, what's your plan to see family during the holidays this year?

Take an assignment near family (5) 25%
Opt not to travel during the holidays (6) 30%
Have time off written in your travel contract (5) 25%
See family during non-holiday times (2) 10%
Not see family at all (2) 10%
Other (0) 0%

CA Strike
They will only walk Labor and Delivery nurses through the CA Board for the strike. Every other nurse will need to hold a current CA license.

If you are available or want more information, please call me at (877) 912-2566.

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