Highway Hypodermics

Jad Elias

Question 1:

In a large metropolitan area, Nurse Floating Flo contracts to float between three hospitals within a 10 mile radius of her housing. Starting in the 6th week, the company ask her to float to a hospital 15 miles away, the 7th week she goes to one on the other side of the city, that is 30 miles away, plus one that is 17 miles away. The nurse is willing to take the first few, but after the behavior continues, she has had enough and voices this to her recruiter.

Answer 1:

I personally do not think this would happen to me. Before accepting the contract I would let the nurse know all the floating requirements the facility has instructed us on. If for some reason they are arranging things outside of the realm of her contract I would reach out to them regarding this to see why it is happening.

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Question 2:

Baby Nurse Betty is a skilled labor and delivery nurse, who also can float to post-pardum care after the delivery as well as the well-newborn nursery. At 7:30pm, the staffing company hotline gets a call stating that they want her to float to the NICU, which is beyond her competency level. What is your company’s response?

Answer 2:

Our company would never put a nurse in a situation that she is not comfortable being in based on the levels of training and education. From a contractual standpoint we would also let them know that they are not able to float the nurse to units they do not have the proper competency levels for.

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Question 3:

Nurse Roach is all excited about her first travel nursing assignment. She drives 750 miles to her new assignment housing. After getting the keys from management, she opens the door and three cockroaches scurry across the floor. After further investigation, she also finds a ring of mold in the shower. She can’t stand it and immediately texts you with pictures. How do you respond?

Answer 3:

I try to do my best to keep the nurse as calm as possible during the situation. Being able to solve a problem becomes much easier when all parties are able to calmly and rationally brainstorm a solution. From there I would try to do what I could to find her a place in the short term if she did not want to continue in the current one. Taking things one step at a time instead of all at once would be the best method to me to helping the nurse out here while on her first assignment.

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Question 4:

You have worked with Nurse Asthmatic for 3 years now and she has done a great job for you, when she takes an assignment in Southeast Colorado. She envisions magic mountains that reach to the sky, only to find that she has landed in wheat country. Not wanting to cause problems she continues to work and everything is fine, until harvest. She has an asthma attack, ends up in the hospital, and is told that she is going to miss at least 2 weeks of work related to asthma induced pneumonia. How do you work things out?

Answer 4:

The primary concern here to me would be the nurses health and safety. If she is in a situation where that is being put at risk we do what they want to do to ensure they are being taken care of to the best of our ability and inform the vendor that the contract would have to be cancelled. Having a relationship with the nurse for 3+ years I would have let them know prior to accepting it what they were going to be in for so they were not surprised upon showing up there.

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Question 5:

You have worked hard to find Nurse Roulette a job in Las Vegas. You send the nurse a contract that she readily accepts, signs, and sends back. The next morning the bags are packed and Nurse Roulette is on the way to the assignment of her dreams. At 0800 she is out the door and to the hospital. Checking in with HR, they inform her that there is no contract between the hospital and the company, related to the fact that it has not been approved by HR. About the same time, the recruiting manager comes to you and tells you not to send Nurse Roulette on the assignment. This shouldn’t have happened, but unfortunately it does happen. What do you do?

Answer 5:

I can not see a situation where this would happen. In the above example the nurse would need to go through at least 2 weeks of credentialing and the facility and vendor would have to be the ones that inform us the necessary requirements they need. We would have also sent out a client confirmation weeks prior to the nurse starting and if there were any issues with that then we would have known long before the nurse shows up for her assignment.

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Question 6:

What would you like travel nurses to know about being a great traveling nurse and making your job easier?

Answer 6:

For me as a recruiter I like to be as honest and transparent as possible with everything I do. One thing that always makes that easier is having that reciprocated. When everyone can operate on the same page it makes the job for both recruiter and nurse much quicker and easier. I believe something to know about being a great travel nurse is just having the ability to adapt whether its something that happens suddenly or with notice. The whole business itself is about adapting to rates, to ratios, to facilities and the market.

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