What Are the Requirements to Become a Travel Nurse

Travel Nurse

Travel nursing is a relatively new merely booming employment option within the healthcare manufacture. Travel nurses piece of work short assignments at hospitals and other healthcare facilities to fill up high-demand positions with a shortage of qualified healthcare professionals.

An individual becomes a travel nurse by finding employment with an agency or organization specializing in placing traveling nurses in jobs effectually the state. These jobs may be permanent positions lasting one or more years, or temporary positions, lasting anywhere from a few weeks to a month or more.

What Is a Travel Nurse?

Travel Nurses areregistered nurses employed in short-term roles by independent healthcare staffing agencies instead of a single hospital. They typically work on a contract basis for a specified period earlier transitioning to some other chore assignment. Their assignments may be in diverse clinical settings, including hospitals, clinics, skilled nursing facilities, or independent living locations.

Traveling nurses may be sent to work at healthcare facilities throughout the United States and worldwide. Because of the temporary nature of travel nurse assignments, those pursuing this career path must exist able to acclimate chop-chop to new work environments and new people. They must as well be willing to relocate to a new location dictated by their assignment.

Important Travel Nursing Information

The standard travel nurse assignment is xiii weeks, simply flexible contracts between eight and 26 weeks are prevalent
38% of travel nurses say they do the job for the adventure
The Affordable Care Human action is credited with a20-twelvemonth high in demand for travel nurses
Travel nursing jobs grew past44% twelvemonth over twelvemonth from 2018 to 2019
The elevation four specialties within travel nursing experienced a threescore% increase, and all belong tocritical intendance nursing jobs

Travel Nurse Requirements

Travel nursing is an highly-seasoned choice for many people because of perks like competitive pay, career flexibility, and the opportunity to travel and explore new places. If you are interested in how to get into travel nursing, here are some of the requirements you should know about before y'all begin your job search.

License Requirements
Certification Requirements
Years of Experience

License Requirements

The most basic requirement to go a travel nurse is a current and unencumbered RN license. Nurses who accept completed an acquaintance's or bachelor's caste in nursing are eligible. Some travel nurse agencies may adopt to hire BSN-prepared registered nurses, merely a BSN degree is not a formal job requirement. If you take a specific facility or consignment in heed, you should check the official travel nurse schooling requirements before signing with a staffing agency.

Certification Requirements

Forth with a nursing license in expert standing, yous will need certifications inAvant-garde Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) andBasic Life Support (BLS) to be hired by a travel nurse bureau. These bones certifications are necessary for travel nurses to perform routine healthcare tasks and procedures.

Additionally, if you plan to pursue assignments in a specialized care unit, information technology is recommended that y'all hold credentials in that specialty. For example, nurses pursuing roles in disquisitional care should haveCCRN certification , and nurses who work in labor and delivery should haveNeonatal Resuscitation certification.

Years of Experience

Before applying with a healthcare staffing bureau, a nurse should have at least one twelvemonth simply often two years of hospital-based bedside experience as a registered nurse. Nurses who will be providing patient care in a specialized unit should have feel commensurate with that specialty. For example, a critical care nurse must have several years of experience working with critically ill patients before they are eligible to work in an ICU.

Growing Demand for Travel Nurses

Hospitals accept long relied on traveling nurses to see temporary needs for additional staffing. Travel nurses have provided safe intendance for millions of people across the land for years by seamlessly integrating themselves into hospitals' workforce, often filling in for sick or absent nurses. Nevertheless, had information technology not been for the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, past far the worst in years, it would exist unlikely that traveling nurses would savour the public recognition they practice today.

Pandemic coverage catapulted travel nurses into the public eye, and now travel nursing has the potential to be ane of the essential parts of the healthcare workforce. Since travel nurses have demonstrated their importance so capably, hospital executives are already taking action to entice them to their facilities. Sign-on bonuses, completion bonuses, housing stipends, and increased pay are just a few of the incentives offered to entice travel nurses to piece of work at hospitals that now recognize travel nursing as vital to patient care.

Affect of the Affordable Intendance Act

The Affordable Care Human action is credited with significantly increasing the demand for travel nurse positions. After millions of people gained healthcare coverage via the ACA, the need for healthcare professionals at hospitals, clinics, and other facilities hitting a 20-year high. In addition, the ACA's Medicaid expansion allowed hospitals to offer more generous pay packages to attract and retain more than qualified candidates.

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Benefits of Travel Nursing

First-class pay, career advocacy, and new adventures are just a few of the perks of travel nursing. As a traveling nurse, y'all have the opportunity to experience the world, earn great money, and take on new challenges. Read on to discover additional rewards of working in this industry.

Explore New Places
Freedom and Flexibility
New Challenges
Earn Neat Money

Explore New Places

Travel nursing gives you a risk to explore a variety of environments and new cities. Whether you want to travel beyond the United States or take a quick trip overseas, travel nursing offers yous a adventure to see new places and run across new people. You can experience dissimilar cultures and proceeds a unique perspective on life, something few professions can offering.

Liberty and Flexibility

Travel nursing provides nurses with unbeatable flexibility and greater command over their careers. Travel nurses tin choose when and where they want to work, a benefit that does non exist for permanent nurses. A travel nurse tin can also take equally many days between assignments equally they want, which means they tin take time off when they want to. This flexibility provides nurses with more time to explore their hobbies, accept intendance of themselves, stay healthy, and savor other interests.

New Challenges

Travel nursing allows nurses to accept new challenges and responsibilities that permanent nurses may not be able to take on. Working at dissimilar facilities, from large hospitals to small, rural offices to urban facilities, traveling nurses tin can learn new skills and gain experience in other areas. Additionally, travel nursing allows y'all to showcase your adaptability, which can benefit you when applying for full-time positions.

Earn Peachy Money

Traveling nurses are well compensated, with hourly pay rates typically higher than permanent staff. In improver to competitive hourly wages, the best paying travel nursing companies too provide housing stipends or gratis furnished housing, sign-on bonuses, and wellness insurance starting on the first day of a new assignment. They may also receive perks like catered meals and airfare reimbursements – just a few examples of how lucrative travel nursing can be.

Summit Travel Nurse Jobs

Over the past decade, the travel nursing industry has experienced remarkable growth as employers have get increasingly reliant on travel nurses to fill skilled nursing positions. Top travel nurse agencies encounter ambitious recruiting across many nursing specialties, from labor and delivery to the ER and PICU. Below, we list several jobs for travel nurses with the highest need and pay.

Labor & Delivery
Telemetry
ICU Nursing
Perioperative / Operating Room
Neonatal Nursing
Emergency Room Nurse

Labor & Commitment

Labor and delivery nurses provide comfort and coaching to women before, during, and after their babies' nativity. Intendance includes providing epidurals and other forms of pain relief, instructing the patient during delivery, timing contractions, cleaning, and evaluating the infant immediately after birth. Labor and delivery nurses tend to the new mother for the rest of her infirmary stay while a neonatal nurse cares for the infant.

Telemetry

A telemetry nurse connects machines to patients that monitor their centre rate, breathing charge per unit, claret pressure level, heart rhythm, and claret-to-oxygen level. The reckoner automatically transmits data from these machines to a nursing station or remote location where a health care professional can closely monitor the patient. Some other nursing staff member uses this data to develop an ongoing handling program for the patient.

ICU Nursing

Patients in intensive care crave complex, specialized care in cardiac care, pediatrics, and neonatal nursing. The demand for experienced ICU nurses is always loftier because these patients need the most intendance. Because of the focus on preventive health intendance and patient wellness, hospitals attempt to go along people at home unless they are incredibly sick. Those who end upwardly in the ICU often require nurses who are experienced in providing highly complex care.

Perioperative / Operating Room

The travel nurse who works in the operating room provides support to surgeons during diverse procedures and cares for patients before and after their surgery. He or she must pay special attention to proper sterilization of surgical instruments and disinfection. Some of the other duties of asurgical nurse include preparing the room for surgery, getting the patient's anesthesia fix, and prepping the patient for the surgical procedure.

Neonatal Nursing

Neonatal nurses work with newborn babies during their beginning 28 days of life and sometimes longer. Babies born healthy require only basic intendance from neonatal nurses, such as feeding, bathing, monitoring vital statistics, and diaper changes. Those born prematurely with a congenital disability or illness need a neonatal nurse's services to assist them recover and receive the best possible start in life. The newborn intensive care unit of measurement, or NICU, provides the highest level of care for newborns.

Emergency Room Nurse

Theemergency room nurse treats people who report to the hospital for immediate care. Some walk-in, while others are brought past ambulance. Accidents, sudden symptoms of illness, assault, and center set on are common reasons people seek handling from their local emergency room. Emergency room nurses aid triage patients and provide directly patient care. Some situations are not as difficult, but the patient was forced to seek emergency care because they had no other treatment options for the injury or illness.

What Are Travel Nurse Agencies Looking For?

Travel nurse agencies typically begin their recruitment of RNs by looking for a good rest of experience and education. A nurse recruiter will search for candidates who have experience working in diverse settings and prefer candidates who possess stiff communication and interpersonal skills. Simply put, they want to make certain the nurses they hire are responsible and reliable workers.

Additionally, agencies and employers look for personal attributes that enable the nurses they hire to succeed. They want employees who are pleasant, honest, and trustworthy. They also search for nurses who tin quickly suit to new work environments and people and have the power to integrate into a new team. Below, we list several essential traits of successful travel nurses:

Flexibility
A Positive Attitude
Competence
Maturity

Flexibility

When nurses receive a new assignment, they accept very piffling time to acclimatize to a new setting, new people, and new protocols. They must adapt rapidly to a new location and forge effective relationships with hospital staff to be successful. They are expected to be well-situated in their new surroundings within i to two weeks.

A Positive Mental attitude

An essential quality of successful travel nurses is maintaining a positive attitude. Healthcare staffing agencies often screen new applicants to ensure they possess an upbeat, cooperative personality and work well with their co-workers and managers. They want workers who accept their assignments with a strong sense of optimism and energy.

Competence

Another essential quality of a successful travel nurse is existence competent in their duties. They must be able to perform all procedures that are assigned to them efficiently and quickly, with minimal supervision. Additionally, they must have the ability to acclimate rapidly to new workflows and protocols.

Maturity

Travel nurses should have a mature, professional, and respectful attitude when accepting an assignment. Travel nurse agencies adopt candidates who take a high level of emotional coping skills and tin can interact with patients and co-workers in a manner that is appropriate to the situation.

Travel Nurse Bacon

The average salary for a travel nurse in 2021 is over $99,000 per year, which is the equivalent of $48.00 per 60 minutes. This average is almost $25,000 higher than those reported just a few years ago, in 2018. Pay has increased significantly in the by two years due to nursing shortages and the pandemic, which has caused tremendous demand for travel nurses, especially in areas where the virus has been most prevalent.

Competitive Employment Packages

In addition to increased hourly wages, travel nurses also receive competitive job packages, including medical insurance, housing, repast allowances, stipends, and travel reimbursement. Employers are eager to attract and retain nurses due to the high demand for their services, making the full earnings of a travel nurse even more lucrative.

Highest-Paying States for Travel Nurses

STATE	HOURLY Hateful WAGE *	ANNUAL MEAN WAGE *
New York	$56.fourscore	$118,145
New Hampshire	$55.16	$114,727
Wyoming	$50.63	$105,304
West Virginia	$49.35	$102,645
Massachusetts	$48.74	$101,389
* Zilch Recruiter, Travel Nurse Salary past State, Oct 2021

Helpful Organizations for Travel Nurses

American Travel Health Nurses Association (ATHNA)
National Clan of Travel Healthcare Organizations (NATHO)
Professional Clan of Nurse Travelers
American Nurses Association

Travel Nurse FAQ

Travel nursing is ane of the most pop and fastest-growing sectors in nursing, and for a good reason. Travel nurses can work worldwide and earn a much higher salary than those who stay home. Other common reasons for the popularity of travel nursing are the abundance of job opportunities, the flexibility to work as much or every bit petty every bit you want, and exposure to different places and cultures.

You can bring your spouse and pets on a travel nursing assignment. Travel nursing agencies tin can usually make recommendations and provide you with options to accommodate spouses, family considerations, or pets if you lot communicate your needs before your offset date. If you lot are traveling with a spouse or pet, it is recommended that you asking information on traveling nurses from several agencies before making a final commitment.

Travel agencies typically offer medical and dental benefits and may provide retirement benefits like a 401K and 401K matching. Over the by ii years, employers who have felt the strain of nursing shortages from the COVID-19 pandemic take gone to cracking lengths to entice travel nurses to their facilities. This has led to a significant re-thinking of the value of travel nurses and how travel agencies can partner to offer perks that appeal to the travel nurse.

To get a travel nurse, yous volition typically need at to the lowest degree an associate's degree in nursing and several years of relevant experience. An ADN is the minimum educational requirement to become a registered nurse in the United states, though some employers may require a available'due south degree in nursing. Some agencies also require ACLS certification, BLS certification, and licensure in the land where you will exist working.

The answer to this question begins with "it depends." The minimum requirement to become a travel nurse is a registered nurse (RN) license, which tin be obtained with an associate's degree or available's degree in nursing. From this perspective, the answer is two to four years, depending on which caste you pursue. An associate'southward degree is the faster and more economic route to licensure, only a available's caste may offer more than opportunities for advancement and higher pay.