Tag: travel nurse

How Partnering With a Recruiter Helps Travelers Succeed

A recruiter can prepare you for success by helping you navigate contracts, weekend and holiday expectations, guaranteed hours, and more.

In this video, Kellie and Carla share more about how our recruiters work one-on-one with their travelers and often take on the role of a life coach when personal and professional challenges arise.

Our team members tell us that having a recruiter in their corner relieves some of the stress that comes with the job.

Also see: The Benefits of Working With a Recruiter vs an App

The Benefits of Working With a Recruiter vs an App

In the first of our series on why recruiters are important in your healthcare career, we share what you are missing out on if you just use an app to get assignments.

At Fidelity On Call, every traveler gets an assigned recruiter and has somebody to hold their hand from day one through the hiring process, to each and every assignment. You don’t get that with an app!

While technology is great, our team members tell us it is more rewarding to have their recruiter to reach out to anytime, anywhere.

Technology and Change is good, til it’s NOT!

One of our travelers recently showed us a few apps being used by other companies to hire nurses. These apps have no recruiters involved and no personal screening. Just an app! Concerns and red flags popped up on so many levels. Sure, the app was slick. However, what quality checks are done and how are they done? Literally any nurse (this app specifically targeted nurses) could download the app, enter their information, upload some forms, and immediately gets jobs assigned to them. There were not credible references done and no verification process on what they were uploading. We found it disturbing to say the least.

Continue reading Technology and Change is good, til it’s NOT!

Our Team is Walking the WALK

Since our inception in 1994, our mission has never changed: to provide only the best in patient care. How do we know if our office team and our travel team are walking the walk?

Weekly, we have nurses that are achieving not only DAISY nominations, but also receiving DAISY Awards. The Daisy was somewhat elusive to travelers, however, we see our team acquiring these awards every week! The end of contract evaluations returned from our clients repeatedly show ABOVE average and/or EXCEEDS Expectations.

Many contain additional remarks on the quality, dependability, attitude and respect the hospital has for our nurse.  These comments are becoming more and more frequent which not only shows the strength of our travel team but also the hiring practices utilized by our recruiters to obtain “only the best.”

Of course, when a nurse’s contract is repeatedly extended (in many cases year after year), you know their performance is exceptional!

We have clients that rely solely on our company to provide the staffing they need. They love the ability to pick up the phone anytime – day or night, weekday or weekend – and know they will be able to speak to a person at our company.

We recently helped a client open a new unit. They called to thank us for making that opening even more successful than they had anticipated.  With the team we supplied them, they were able to open at full patient capacity.

Fidelity On Call has few openings in the home office and these usually occur because the company is growing and we need an additional team member. We have successfully hired in all departments this year.

With that said, we have office team members who have been with our company over a decade and a few over two decades. That says a lot.

Retention is important to our company. No employee should feel like they are just a number. Every person is valued. As we hire, we understand travelers come and go for a variety of reasons. But, we are always SOOO happy when they decide to come back – they choose us! Our recruiters and our entire company work very hard to ensure our travel team retention is just as high as our internal staff retention.

What Fidelity On Call knows for sure is a company is only as good as the people they employ. We could not be happier with that success. We strive to hire the best and treat our team the best.

Clearly our clients are reaping the rewards and we appreciate them sharing feedback with us. We look forward to continuing on our mission to hire only the best!

Protect Yourself From Workplace Violence

Did you know that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) classifies workplace violence into four basic types? Types II and III are the most common in the health care industry.

  • Type I: Involves “criminal intent.” In this type of workplace violence, “individuals with criminal intent have no relationship to the business or its employees.”
  • Type II: Involves a customer, client, or patient. In this type, an “individual has a relationship with the business and becomes violent while receiving services.”
  • Type III: Involves a “worker-on-worker” relationship and includes “employees who attack or threaten another employee.”
  • Type IV: Involves personal relationships. It includes “individuals who have interpersonal relationships with the intended target but no relationship to the business” (Iowa Prevention Research Center, 2001; NIOSH, 2006, 2013).

It is disheartening to realize that the very people who provide care, compassion, and medical assistance, and in many cases save a person’s life, are on the receiving end of violence. While we do acknowledge that many of our clients have excellent security and steps in place to help prevent such occurrences, we know there is a long way to go for many facilities and there must be an overhaul to stop such violence. Fidelity On Call acknowledges there are many contributing factors to the increase of workplace violence.

Here are some tips that we can offer travelers to help avoid and/or educate themselves for such events happening to them while on assignment.

1) De-escalation training

Knowing how to defuse a hostile situation has been shown to be more effective than having armed guards in a hospital. Formal training in how to de-escalate a tense situation or encounter can have a major impact on the safety of doctors, nurses, guards, or other staff members. There are classes available online and in-person.

2) Ask to review the facility you are contracted at WPV Prevention Plan

We must acknowledge that there is an abnormally high risk of workplace violence breaking out in hospitals and clinics around the country and arm ourselves with as much information as we can. As a traveler, you may not be receiving the same thorough orientation as a staff member would. However, you can ask what the plan is for the facility, so you know how the facility would handle workplace violence and they have a plan in place should it occur.

In short, if you have a concern about a facility you are contracted in, you should immediately reach out to your recruiter to get further information. Your SAFETY is our PRIORITY.