As a dialysis professional, you can work with medical staffing agencies to find jobs across the country. There are several important things to know about dialysis staffing as a dialysis nurse or technician. Understanding these different elements helps you as you look for different jobs as a traveling dialysis professional. Knowing things like staffing ratios and current demand is a great way to plan your next career move. In this article, we’ll help you understand things you should know as a dialysis nurse or technician about dialysis staffing.
If you’re ready to get started as a traveling dialysis professional, contact our recruiters or browse our job board now!
Why Work with Medical Staffing Agencies to Find Dialysis Jobs
If you’re looking for travel dialysis jobs, then you will probably need to work with medical staffing agencies to find the perfect assignments for you. There are several reasons to work with an agency as a traveler.
One reason is that most facilities don’t hire travelers directly as independent contractors. Instead, they prefer to work with agencies. There are a few reasons for this. One is that medical staffing agencies have a large pool of dialysis professionals to choose from to fill the opening. Also, this reduces how much work their internal recruiters have to do to find a good candidate.
This leads to the second reason: medical staffing agencies often have access to jobs you don’t. Many facilities prefer to work with agencies and won’t list opportunities without them. Therefore, to have access to the most lucrative and appealing assignments, you likely need an agency.
Additionally, let’s not forget that medical staffing agencies negotiate pay for each assignment. This means you have a team of professionals that negotiate with healthcare facilities every day working to improve your pay. This means you get peace of mind that you will receive a fair compensation package for each and every assignment.
There are also other perks of working with medical staffing agencies like AHS RenalStat. For instance, we offer ongoing support for many different things you will need. Things like credentialing help, housing, and just general support from your recruiter can make a huge difference.
Important Things to Know About Dialysis Staffing
As a dialysis professional, you know all about providing kidney patients with the dialysis care they need. However, there’s a lot of things going on in the background that determine dialysis staffing. For instance, when facilities hire permanent staff versus when they opt to hire a traveler for dialysis nurse or dialysis technician jobs.
There are several things that affect dialysis staffing where facilities may turn to medical staffing agencies to help with. For instance, staffing ratios set either by the law or by the facility. Also, the increasing demand for dialysis professionals throughout the country.
Staffing Ratios
Staffing ratios are an important part of any healthcare facility, including dialysis centers. These ratios are numbers set for how many professionals there are to patients. They generally change depending on the position. For instance, usually ratios are much lower for dialysis technicians, as they are performing several activities for each patient. However, dialysis nurse ratios are generally a little higher.
There are several states that actually have mandated staffing ratios for healthcare facilities. Each is different, with some requiring a 50%/50% model while others require exact ratios of one type of staff to X number of patients. For instance, Georgia is required to have one nurse per 10 patients and one technician for every four patients.
However, even if you want to travel to states without mandated dialysis staffing ratios, many facilities set their own policies for staffing ratios. This changes depending on the facility, and many really tailor their policies to their facility. For instance, if they primarily work with patients who need more care, they may have lower staffing ratios. This would be to account for the extra supervision their patients need. In many cases, this means bringing on travelers through medical staffing agencies temporarily to ensure they have the right staffing ratios.
There are several reasons that facilities may have staffing ratios they stick to. The two most commonly cited are quality of care for their patients and reducing the risk of burnout for their staff.
Improving Quality of Care
One reason many facilities have set staffing ratios is for patient care standards. It’s logical to think that if a nurse or technician has too many dialysis patients, it may be too high of a workload to provide top quality care. Studies have also confirmed this. As staffing ratios increase in dialysis facilities, the risk for adverse reactions also increase, including for disease transmission and needle dislodgement. This is true both of dialysis nurses and dialysis technicians with too many patients to treat and oversee at any given time.
Therefore, when staffing ratios become so high that it puts patients at risk, then facilities may turn to medical staffing agencies like AHS RenalStat to find travelers to fill in temporarily until they can find a more permanent solution. For instance, if someone quits their job or needs to take unexpected leave.
Reducing Burnout
Burnout and exhaustion are both a huge concern for healthcare as a whole, including dialysis professionals. Staffing ratios are also often used to help control workloads to discourage burnout and exhaustion that can lead to people quitting their jobs or even getting out of the field entirely. Keeping workload to a realistic and appropriate level helps prevent issues with burnout so nurses and technicians can perform their best at all times. In some cases, this may mean bringing on travelers to help balance the workload.
Medical Staffing Agencies are Experiencing High Demand for Dialysis Professionals
It’s also important to note that there’s a huge demand for dialysis professionals across the country, which also affects staffing and the need for traveling dialysis technicians and nurses. The increasing number of kidney patients plus the decreasing number of dialysis professionals has led to a serious shortage in this industry, leaving many facilities desperate for help to provide care to the patients they have. This has also increased the demand for traveling dialysis professionals. Therefore, many facilities work with medical staffing agencies to fill in for gaps as they look for qualified professionals to join their team permanently.
AHS RenalStat – One of the Top Medical Staffing Agencies for Dialysis Nurses and Technicians
Start the career and life you want by becoming a traveler with AHS RenalStat. We specialize in dialysis staffing and help dialysis professionals of all kinds find assignments that suit their needs. Whether your goal is to visit all 50 states or you’re looking for the highest paying jobs available, we are here to help you find what you’re looking for. Our team is proud to provide personalized, ongoing support to help you achieve your goals. Talk to a recruiter today or check out our job board to learn more about our opportunities.
