Hospitals are increasingly looking to gig-focused apps to fill roles for nurses.
Major hospital networks Providence and Advocate Health are using apps like Dallas-based ShiftKey and CareRev to let nurses bid on shifts, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The apps are a way for hospitals to lure in nurses who value the flexibility of gig work and allow them to compete against temporary-staffing agencies that pulled nurses away from hospitals during the pandemic, according to the WSJ.
Amid increased hiring at hospitals, the demand for nurses remains high.
“We’re still short,” Elaine Zemel, business analyst for nursing administration at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, told the WSJ.
“Nurses know that the ball is in their court.”
The strain of the pandemic caused a shakeup in the medical profession, prompting some healthcare workers to retire and others to seek jobs with more flexible schedules. This has pushed hospitals to get creative when it comes to staffing.
Nurse employment fell by 100,000 workers between 2020 and 2021, the biggest drop in four decades of available data, according to a study by Health Affairs.
While utilizing gig apps for nurses opens up the talent pool for hospitals, it also means some shifts may not get filled, according to Jane Dus, Midwest chief nursing officer for Advocate Health hospitals in Wisconsin and Illinois, told the WSJ.
Mark Smith, who oversees workforce analysis for Providence, says that adding gig nurses in the past year has filled 13,000 shifts for nurses and other medical jobs, according to the WSJ.
Providence plans to expand its gig work from 12 to 19 hospitals and wants to shorten nurse shifts from 12 to six hours to attract more workers, per the WSJ.
Similar to how ride-share apps base their costs on demand, the nurse staffing apps also share the same feature.
The downside is that the apps could encourage nurses to hold out for higher rates, similar to how ride-share apps raise pricing during peak hours. Still, nurses serving as gig workers for hospitals may become a norm in the healthcare industry.
“The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the spread of the gig economy into the caregiver workforce, and it’s here to stay,” Susan Pasley, VP of clinical solutions at CareRev, told HealthLeaders last year.
“The gig economy offers alternative, flexible options to retain nurses in the profession while eliminating budget-draining travel contracts,” she said.
