Did you know that during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic 53% of nurse practitioners who returned to their practice as an RN doing travel nursing rated their overall experience on a scale of 1 to 10 as being between an 8 and a 10?
In 2022, Barton Associates, the parent company of Barton Healthcare Staffing travel allied health and travel nurse agency, conducted a survey of over 280 of their locum tenens nurse practitioners to gauge what NPs’ experiences were like working and conducting patient care through the height of the Covid-19 pandemic called the Barton Associates 2022 NP Covid-19 Experience Survey.
Covid-19 stirred up quite a frenzy in both the general healthcare sphere, as well as the healthcare staffing industry, which, in many cases, resulted in locum tenens nurse practitioners returning to their practice as registered nursing clinicians due to factors such as higher job availability and pay.
While the majority of of Barton Associates’ surveyed locum NPs continued their work as usual, over a quarter of respondents (25.4%) did decide to practice as an RN for a variety of reasons. These reasons include, but are not limited to wanting to feel more fulfilled from helping in Covid-19 relief efforts (23.6%), lower job availability as a locum NP (19.1%), and lower demand for their specialties (13.5%).
Moreover, of the locum NPs who made the decision to practice as registered nurses, the majority, an astounding 60%, chose to work as travel nurses. In the survey, both respondents who took travel nursing jobs, and respondents who took permanent nursing jobs were asked to respond to questions about their experiences as they related to changes in income, stress levels, and their overall ratings of their experiences in their RN positions.
It’s unsurprising to us that traveling nurses reported higher earnings, lower stress, and better overall experiences than the staff RNs, which is likely why these practitioners chose to work in travel nursing during their time of need in the first place! But don’t take it from us, check out our Comparisons of Travel Nurse and Staff RN COVID-19 Experiences inforgraphic now to see the full results!
Download the Barton Healthcare Staffing Comparisons of Travel Nurse and Staff RN COVID-19 Experiences inforgraphic here, or check out the image below to see what real traveling healthcare professionals had to say about their Covid-19 experiences!
Ready to earn more, stress less, and bring the fun back into your career with travel nursing? Contact one of our skilled recruiters, or check out our open travel nursing jobs today to get started!
