The Benefits of Working with a Nursing Agency
It’s hard for a nurse to just waltz into a medical facility and ask for a job even if he or she needs it badly. This is why sometimes a nursing agency is the best path for new nurses, at least for the present time. True, nursing agencies don’t necessarily offer the benefits of a full-time job, with hiring done by hospital management. However, they do offer regular employment. Likewise, hospitals, clinics and private facilities can also benefit from a nursing agency because they are able to provide qualified workers at a moment’s notice. Here are five advantages that might come from working with an agency for staffing needs.
Advantages of Working with a Nursing Agency
Financial Advantages
While agencies usually take money from the medical facility, these are still significant savings because they use registry staff. There are many other expenses, some extremely costly that a hospital can avoid by hiring an agency that pays benefits out of its own pockets. For example, workers compensation, wage tax, and other expensive extras cost hospitals a lot of money.
Special Talents
When nurses apply for jobs directly, they can only use the skill sets they have, and might need further training, an expense for management. However, an agency can provide hard-to-find skills because of its wide list of applicants and qualified nurses to choose from. There is often a lack of specialized talent in nursing and it has reached a federal level at this point that means trained nurses are in demand and rest assured, if there are special skills nurses out there, they are signed up at an agency looking for the right fit.
Greater Recruiting Access
Most of the top medical agencies work nationwide, giving them wider access to specialized talent, and localized talent. Since these workers are not contracted, management can use them temporarily, even while continuing to recruit new nurses on their own. You have full access to full-time, part-time, or temporary nurses, without the need for an individual worker contract. You may be surprised to know head hunting services might actually be less expensive than placing ads on medical sites or in publications.
Seasonal Opportunities
It’s not practical to hire full-time employees if you only need them for six months out of the year. This is one of the primary advantages of nursing agencies. You can pay for the work you need and then dismiss the workers without incident, since they are used to working temporary jobs. This is ideal for hospitals to have immediate needs because of seasonal trends, or daily shortages. You can replace nurses who are sick, on vacation, or who leave their positions on very short notice. This is especially useful in states where mandatory patient-to-nurse ratios are required.
Better Patient Care
Shortages of qualified nurses are bringing down the overall quality of care in the profession. Costs are rising while the industry continues to move at a shaky pace. However, using a nursing agency can help improve patient quality care, since practically all agency nurses are certified, come from a qualified educational background and have had all educational achievements verified.
The truth is few hospitals can get by using only nurses brought on from direct hiring. All hospitals at some time or another will need staffing agencies, even if it’s just a temporary assignment. As you’ve learned, there are at least five ways to profit, save and optimize your business by hiring agency-represented nurses.
