Hospitals Preparing for Flu Season Early: Lock in Your Travel Assignment Now
As the summer months fade and the pandemic continues, healthcare facilities are preparing early for the 2020-2021 flu season and there’s been a steady increase of travel nursing and allied health jobs nationwide. “Hospitals across the country are beginning to bring up concerns of what will happen with the combination of schools opening, COVID and the flu,” said Jennifer Pomietlo, VP of Strategic Development at StaffDNA, the fastest-growing healthcare staffing platform. “They anticipate needing even more travelers due to this and want to be prepared earlier than past years.” Anticipating an influx of patients for both coronavirus and influenza, The New York Times keyed this season as a possible “Twindemic.” Flu season typically peaks between January and February but this year could be very different. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the flu peaked by October. If that occurs this year, hospitals could be strained. That is the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield’s biggest fear. Here’s how the possible Twindemic is impacting healthcare travel jobs. Early High Demand Travel nursing and allied health assignments for flu season typically begin posting around October but under the current situation, there is a record number of healthcare jobs, according to StaffDNA’s Job Board, which updates all positions across the country in real-time. Whether located in COVID-19 hotspots or not, hospitals across the country are adding staff to prepare and relieve over-worked staff. The top nursing specialties include ICU, Medical-Surgical, Telemetry and PCU/IMC. Openings for Emergency Room nurses are also ramping up ahead of flu season. Top Travel Nurse Specialties & Highest Pay Packages* RN, ICU 1,050 Unique Jobs Paying up to $4,400/week RN, MS 750 Unique Jobs Paying up to $3,552/week RN, TELE 550 Unique Jobs Paying up to $3,712/week RN, PCU/IMC 325 Unique Jobs Paying up to $3,886/week RN, ER 250 Unique Jobs Paying up to $3,627/week Assignments for Operating Room nurses and surgery-related positions typically increase leading up to the end of the year for elective surgeries. This year, assignments and locations could vary depending on local and state guidelines regarding elective surgeries if there’s another surge in COVID-19 cases and stay-at-home orders. There are also positions open for more focused specialties such as CVICU, Labor & Delivery and Cath Lab RNs. Travelers interested in these roles may need to be more flexible on location to get the higher pay packages. Top Travel Allied Positions* Respiratory Therapist 150 Unique Jobs Paying up to $2,746/week Certified Surgical Technician 175 Unique Jobs Paying up to $2,446/week *Data is according to StaffDNA, the Digital Marketplace for Healthcare Careers, as of 9/8/20. Positions are updated in real-time on the StaffDNA app and Job Board. See all details upfront and personalize pay packages in the app (no registration required).
Travel Jobs: Where Travelers Applied In Oct., Nov. Market Predictions
November can be a bit of an odd duck month for the travel healthcare job market. As the last month before the busiest season of the year in terms of patient census, many healthcare facilities are still trying to fill jobs needs with temporary staff. Many states still have job opportunities in the triple digits as of Nov. 13. At the same time, many travelers who were job hunting in September and October are either committed to jobs with November start dates or have pre-booked for late-December or early-January to have free time during the holidays. Travel healthcare jobs November 2018 Based on current job market data and information from staffing agency recruiters and sales representatives, we expect a slight increase in the volume of available job opportunities, but the amount of application activity should remain relatively flat. In other words, the amount travelers applying to jobs is already quite high—with dozens of submittals for competitive positions—and should stay high throughout most of the month. A good portion of the job market volume increase will come from northern and cold weather states, like Oregon, Michigan, Colorado and Wisconsin. Hospitals in these states will need to fill vacancies left by “snowbird” travelers heading south, said Jamison Reitinger, a client advisor for LiquidAgents Healthcare. “Bill rates are remaining consistently high in northern territories, except OR-RN rates, which are increasing across the board due to large OR nurse shortages in Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado,” Reitinger said. There has also been a notable increase in travel nurse jobs available in the Southeast U.S., mostly in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. A large part of the increase is due to the recent surge in EMR conversion positions available in Kentucky and West Virginia through Appalachian Regional Healthcare. The healthcare system started advertising temporary staffing needs for their hospital in late October and will need travelers through the rest of the year and into 2019, so we expect these states to see more incoming applications from travelers in November. Depending on the severity of this year’s flu season, job market activity could also increase in Southern states like Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, as those states typically see high levels of flu activity earlier than others. No major changes in the Top 10 most applied-to states The most popular states for travelers—California, Florida and Texas—retained their top spots in October, and should continue to see high application numbers for the rest of the year. South Carolina was the only new state to enter the top 10, moving up from No. 12. Georgia fell out, dropping seven ranks to No. 12. Utah makes the largest jump, Connecticut drops the farthest Utah saw the biggest surge in traveler applications by far, moving up 18 positions to No. 33 on the list. Connecticut dropped 12 spots to No. 46 October’s Top Markets California Florida Texas Michigan Tennessee North Carolina Missouri Pennsylvania Arizona South Carolina Virginia Georgia Indiana Kentucky Oklahoma Arkansas Maine Iowa Idaho Wisconsin West Virginia New Mexico Nevada Oregon Colorado Hawaii Ohio Washington Massachusetts New Jersey Illinois Louisiana Utah Alaska Minnesota Alabama Montana Kansas Maryland Mississippi New Hampshire North Dakota Nebraska Rhode Island Wyoming Connecticut Washington, D.C. Delaware New York South Dakota Vermont Editor’s note: This list is created by analyzing the number of travelers applying for jobs in these individual states and Washington D.C. Is not necessarily an indicator of traveler interest in these states and is not necessarily an indicator of job volume. Application data comes from the StaffDNA jobs database.
Travel Nurse Market: High facility turnover expected as heavy flu season winds down
This year’s brutal flu season in the U.S. has lost its edge in recent weeks, according to the most recent Center for Disease Control data, but not without leaving a heavy impact on patients and facilities during the peak mid-winter months. An estimated 160 children died from the flu between fall 2017 and spring 2018, marking the deadliest flu season since 2012-2013 with 171 deaths, according to CDC data. That number is expected to rise once the data is finalized, according to a report on USA Today. <a href=’#’><img alt=’Laboratory-Confirmed Influenza HospitalizationsPreliminary cumulative rates as of 04-21-2018 * ** ‘ src=’https://public.tableau.com/static/images/CD/CDCFluData2017-2018/Sheet1/1_rss.png’ style=’border: none’ /></a> The season also saw cumulative hospitalizations across all age ranges of 105 out of every 100,000 people as a result of the virus. People age 65 and older were affected the most, with 454 hospitalizations out of 100,000 people at the peak of the season in mid-April. Facilities were swamped trying to meet patient care needs around the country, meaning travelers who locked down their contracts at the start of the year were offered extensions much earlier than expected, LiquidAgents Healthcare director of client advisory Oren Lavi said. “There was a major push for extensions early this year,” Lavi said. “On a typical 13-week contract, hospitals will wait 30 days or longer to offer extensions to travelers, but we were getting extension offers within two weeks of them starting at a facility.” During the seasonal transition in the next few weeks, travelers who impressed their facilities could potentially see additional extension offers as hospitals plan their summer staffing needs, Lavi said. The number of back-fill opportunities should also increase as hospital evaluate their staffing needs after the difficult flu season, Lavi said. “This is the time when hospitals will cut staff that didn’t perform as well as they hoped, but they still had to hire to meet patient care demands at the facility,” Lavi said. “Once those positions are cut, hospitals will have to back-fill to keep things running smoothly.”