Highway Hypodermics

Kathy Mullin

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:

Let the nurse know that we are here to support her and handle situations like this for her. Then take charge of the situation so that the nurse can just concentrate on her job and remind facility staffing that this nurse was contracted to float between 3 hospitals within 10 miles of her housing location. Follow up with the nurse to assure them that we have spoken with the facility and they are working within the signed and agreed upon contract guidelines.

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:

Let the nurse know that we are here to support her and handle situations like this for her. Then take charge of the situation so that the nurse can just concentrate on her job and remind facility staffing that this nurse is contracted & cleared for L&D, PP and newborn/nursery, but not NICU and is not safe for this nurse to float there. Bottom line: it is not safe for the nurse or the facility/patients for any nurse to float to units not cleared for or competent in, so we do not allow our nurses to work in units they are not competent in. Follow up with the nurse to assure them that they are not required to float to any units they are not contracted to float to and are not competent to work in.

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:

Assuming in this scenario, that we did the housing arrangement for Nurse Roach, assure the nurse that we will do everything to work with them to rectify this situation to her satisfaction, up to and including removal to another housing situation. And even in the event that we did not provide housing, we would still support our nurse in whatever way we can---have helped people search and make calls to find housing. Just keep in touch with nurse to support in whatever way they need until the situation is resolved to their satisfaction. Unsanitary and unsafe housing is never the best way to start an assignment and can make all the difference in the assignment.

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:

We would work with the facility to get her back on schedule after she has recovered her health (assuming she can return to work in Colorado environment safely & is cleared by her doctor to do so) and usually would just add those missed 2 weeks onto the end of the contract to make up those budgeted hours with the facility .

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:

We do not send nurse to positions without WRITTEN offers and WRITTEN assignment confirmations from the staffing facility, so that we have names, signatures of who approved and copies of the facility contract that state the repercussions of a cancelled assignment by the facility without notice and what the facility penalty would be. Beyond this, we would, of course, work non-stop to find another placement in that area for that nurse to start asap, if the original facility still did not honor their commitment after being shown written assignment confirmation by their employee & their contractual penalties per their contract with us. I have not had this happen because we do make sure to get everything in writing to protect our nurses from bad situations like stated above.

Question 6:

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

Answer 6:

We have found that great travel nurses have found that when they keep a file with all their items needed (updated resume, copies of certifications, vaccines, shots, titers, tests, physical, hospital evaluations/references/letters of recommendations, education certificate/diploma, etc) it makes each new assignment so much easier because they don't have to search for everything on each new assignment. a second key point would be to please be up front with your recruiter on what you want in an assignment and what is most important to you in your assignment, because everyone is different in their needs and their priorities and we can best serve you in your search when we have all the most pertinent information for you in particular. With these couple pieces of information, we can best search for our nurses until we find the position that best suits their needs at that point in their career.

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