The quality and quantity of nursing and allied health candidates that a staffing company provide is really the core of their business and is one of the main reasons you should be considering working with a staffing company in the first place. There are four key components to this: Nursing and Allied Health Candidate Pool Size, Recruiting Travel Nurses and Allied Health Professionals, Screening Travel Nurses and Allied Health Professionals and Speed in Finding Travel Nurses and Allied Health Professionals for Your Hospital.
Nursing and Allied Health Candidate Pool Size
First you want to look at how many nurses and other healthcare providers they have in their database. It does not do you much good to sign on to work with a company, no matter how low their prices or how friendly they seem, if they don’t have the candidates to meet y
our needs. Even more specifically you will want to find out how many candidates they have licensed in your area and working in the specialties you need most.
Recruiting Travel Nurses and Allied Health Professionals
Next you want to find out how they attract new nurses and therapists to work for them. You want to know that they are an attractive option for the best candidates out there. Think of them like a college sports team, often the best schools get the best student-athletes and in turn put the best teams out on the field. Travel nursing companies or travel therapy companies function basically the same way. The best nurses, for example, know that they are in higher demand and thus are going to go with the company that treats them best, whether for that nurse it is pay, relationship with recruiter or customer service. That’s why you want to work with companies with good reputations among the travelers themselves and that are always actively seeking new candidates and building their brand among them.
Screening Travel Nurses and Allied Health Professionals
The next factor you will want to look at is what qualification process goes on to ensure that your hospital only gets qualified and pre-screened candidates that you feel comfortable providing patient care at your facility. One easy way to do this is to make sure they are Joint Commission certified, which means that they have been evaluated by the largest standards-setting and accrediting body in healthcare and have earned the Gold Seal of Approval™ . This demonstrates that they are dedicated to providing qualified healthcare staff able to deliver high-quality patient care.
Next you want to ask specifics about their application and screening process. The basics of a good screening process include a thorough background check, immunizations, drug screening, skills evaluation, personal interviews and references. If any of these things are missing from a company’s screening process you should reconsider if they are going to provide you with the best candidates.
Speed in Finding Travel Nurses and Allied Health Professionals for Your Hospital
Another important factor in evaluating travel nursing or travel therapy companies for your facility is their response time in getting you the candidates you need. Again it does not do your hospital any good to work with a staffing company that boasts thousands of candidates, but takes a week to send you someone. You should expect a company to provide you with qualified candidates in the speed you need whether it is a couple of days or months in advance.
Conclusion about Evaluating a Company’s Nursing and Allied Health Candidates
Being thorough in evaluating the quality of candidates of a travel nursing or travel therapy company is an important part of the patient care your hospital provides so take the time to do it right and ask the right questions and lots of them. In the next post in this series we will look at Evaluating a Healthcare Staffing Company’s Processes.
