To reduce agency nurse spend, fill open shifts with your own nurses first and treat agency as the last step in a set escalation order. Find exactly where agency hours come from, close those gaps with
To negotiate rates with nurse staffing agencies, benchmark what the market pays for each specialty, consolidate your volume so it's worth an agency's attention, and negotiate the whole contract (multi
Converting travel nurses into staff nurses works best when you start the conversation in the first half of the contract, show the traveler their full compensation rather than just the base rate, and k
To cross-train nurses to float, group units that care for similar patients, write a competency checklist for each receiving unit, and give nurses orientation and buddy shifts there before they take a
Offer every open shift to your own nurses first, in tiers. Start with the home unit's qualified staff, then the float pool, cross-trained and per diem nurses, and release a shift to agency only after
Set up incentive pay for hard-to-fill nurse shifts by defining exactly which shifts qualify, setting a small number of rates that rise as the shift date gets closer, and publishing the rules where eve
To fill shifts with per diem nurses instead of agency, build an internal pool of hospital-employed nurses who work as needed, and offer every open shift to them, along with your core staff and float p
Start an internal float pool by finding where your recurring staffing gaps are, then funding a dedicated group of your own nurses to fill them across several units. To get there, size the pool from yo
The true cost of an agency nurse is the agency bill rate plus every indirect cost the hospital absorbs: orientation, credential checks, preceptor time, vendor fees, admin hours, and premium or cancell
