The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated an existing health care worker shortage, prompting hospitals large and small to have to turn to staffing agencies and traveling nurses to fill holes caused by resignations, retirements and workers out sick with COVID-19 or something else.
But that strategy is only a short-term one, and it’s very expensive. Average pay for travel nurses is currently about $3,300 a week, according to health care recruiting company Vivian Health. That’s up from about $1,800 a week before the pandemic.
CHI Health, which owns St. Elizabeth and Nebraska Heart Hospital in Lincoln, is a perfect example.
Timothy Plante, division vice president of patient care, said the company spent $8 million on traveling nurses in February. Before the pandemic, its average yearly spending on traveling nurses was less than $2 million.
“Obviously, this model is not sustainable,” Plante said. “So we had to get creative.”
That solution is to create its own system of traveling nurses. Called the CHI Health Midwest Internal Travel Program, it allows existing CHI Health nurses, technicians, lab scientists, pharmacists and other employees to travel within the health system’s footprint on 6- to 12-week assignments. The program also is open to experienced health professionals who don’t currently work for CHI Health.
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Plante said it has two levels, one for people who only want work in hospitals in Nebraska and southwest Iowa, and another tier for those who are willing to travel to CHI Health hospitals in Minnesota and North Dakota.
He said the company is able to provide its staff travel nurses the same rate of pay they would get from a staffing agency but still save money because it doesn’t have to pay staffing agency fees. In addition, the workers get the stability of a regular job along with benefits such as vacation and retirement that aren’t typically provided with traveler contracts.
Plante said the system works well, because in many cases it is keeping employees within the CHI Health fold who might have otherwise left to take a traveler position.
“One thing to keep in mind is that if somebody really wants to go do this, they’re probably going to do it anyway, so having a way to keep them internal within our own organization is really important,” he said.
That was the case for Makalia Abrahamson. The 13-year CHI Health employee was working in a management position at Bergan Mercy in Omaha but was feeling a “tug at my heart” to return to patient care.
“It was one of those contemplations of leaving CHI and going traveling across the country or staying close to home,” she said, which was an easy decision because, “I didn’t want to leave.”
Abrahamson took a contract to work at CHI St. Elizabeth and has enjoyed it so much she extended her term through June.
Another nurse in the program, Kate Syzmanski, said she’s loving the program as well.
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“It’s been the best thing for me,” said Syzmanski, who is currently working at CHI St. Francis in Grand Island but who has worked at a number of other hospitals, including St. Elizabeth. “I’ve been able to stay home but still travel and get a lot of the travel money that as nurses we want to get.”
Plante said there are currently about 40-50 employees in the traveler pool, but the goal is to expand to about 100.
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PhotosFiles: Tracing St. Elizabeth’s history
St. Elizabeth
Carriages pull up in front of the first addition to St. Elizabeth Hospital at its original 11th and South street location in this May 1898 photo. The original building is shown in the background. St. Elizabeth, Lincoln’s first general hospital, opened its doors Sept. 17, 1889, in a remodeled 15-room residence at 11th and South streets. Construction began on the first new hospital building in 1891 and it opened in 1893. Additional floors and wings were added through the years. The 1893 unit is at the far southwest corner. When the hospital moved in 1969, the old building was bought by Lancaster County to be operated as a county nursing home called Lancaster Manor — later Lancaster Rehabilitation Center. The hospital’s chapel is still preserved.
St. Elizabeth
St. Elizabeth Hospital, seen facing South Street in this photo from 1930. The 1893 unit is at the right.
St. Elizabeth
An aerial shot of St. Elizabeth in 1956 looking east from its location at 11th and South streets. South 13th Street runs across the top of the photo.
St. Elizabeth
Drs. Roland F. Mueller (from left), Gene Sucha, Gena Lanspa and Robert Buchman take a look at a new lamp that was donated to St. Elizabeth Hospital for use in surgical operations in October 1956.
St. Elizabeth
St. Elizabeth Hospital seen in this April 1956 photo.
St. Elizabeth
Lincoln’s original St. Elizabeth Hospital crumbles as the wrecking ball does its job in March 1994 at 11th and South streets.
St. Elizabeth
Lincoln Mayor Sam Schwartzkopf (left) watches Sister Frances Ann at the St. Elizabeth Hospital groundbreaking in July 1967 at its 70th and O streets location, which would become the hospital’s new home in 1969.
St. Elizabeth
A shot of construction of St. Elizabeth Hospital on an unknown date.
St. Elizabeth
Here’s how St. Elizabeth Hospital (right) and the older Lincoln Veterans Hospital looked in September 1968 from their neighborly 70 and O streets location when photographed from a residential point in the Eastridge neighborhood.
St. Elizabeth
St. Elizabeth Hospital seen in this January 1995 photo. St. Elizabeth moved from its first location at 11th and South streets to its current home at 70th and O streets in 1969.
St. Elizabeth
Bishop Glennon P. Flavin (back right) of the Diocese of Lincoln dedicates St. Elizabeth Hospital in September 1970.
St. Elizabeth
Firemen Wes Schiermann (from left), Roger Schwindt and St. Elizabeth nurse Nancy Heckert examine the Circ-o-Lectric bed bought with Lincoln Firemen Benefit Association funds in December 1973.
St. Elizabeth
Denice Schroeder, a surgical nurse at St. Elizabeth Hospital, puts an anesthetic mask on Brenda Johnson while the other ‘patients’ look on.
St. Elizabeth
Cuddler volunteer Marilyn Olson takes care of Andrew Stickney, son of Jeffrey and Margaret Stickney of Lincoln, in May 1985.
St. Elizabeth
Richard Waller, director of radiology at St. Elizabeth Hospital, shows X-rays to Arlo McKeeb and Arlo’s grandmother, Mrs. Anthony DiPaolo in May 1986.
St. Elizabeth
A child looks on in St. Elizabeth Hospital’s children’s waiting room in May 1970.
St. Elizabeth
The Rev. Ignatius Lempart, chaplain at St. Elizabeth Community Health Center in May 1985, meditates in the chapel.
St. Elizabeth
A very tiny baby, Henry Wellensiek, of Syracuse, is seen in his incubator at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Oct. 11, 1953, at the hospital’s original location near 11th and South streets. The hospital moved to its current home near 70th and O streets in 1969.
St. Elizabeth
Debby (from left), Steve and Owen Berthelsen look over the birthing chair at St. Elizabeth Community Health Center in April 1981.
St. Elizabeth
Robin Schaffert (left), a technician at St. Elizabeth Hospital in May 1993, tests Trent Carney’s hearing as his mother observes. Shortly after moving to its current location at 70th and O streets, St. Elizabeth opened its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. In 1973, the hospital’s Burn Center opened.
St. Elizabeth
CHI Health Saint Elizabeth shines in a pink glow for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October 2014. The hospital underwent a $110 million expansion in 2001, which was completed three years later. It tripled the campus’ size, adding a new six-story patient tower, a four-level parking garage and medical plaza building.
St. Elizabeth
Paramedic/EMTs wheel a simulated Ebola victim in an isolation pod into the CHI Health St. Elizabeth Emergency Room on June 12, 2016 during an Ebola response exercise sponsored by the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department.
St. Elizabeth
A $1.8 million renovation of the Regional Burn and Wound Center at CHI Health St. Elizabeth — completed earlier this year — includes full-wall images by Lincoln-based conservation photographer Michael Forsberg in each room.
St. Elizabeth
Colorful murals line the walls of one of the eight rooms at the newly completed CHI Health Pediatric Place at St. Elizabeth. The unit — a unique, specialized eight-bed emergency room built just for kids — was opened with a ribbon-cutting Dec. 3, 2019. The project was made possible through the CHI Health St. Elizabeth Foundation and community donors, who together raised more than $750,000.
St. Elizabeth
A child-size, multi-colored bear lies on the bed of one of the eight rooms at the newly completed CHI Health Pediatric Place at St. Elizabeth in December. The unit — a unique, specialized 8-bed emergency room built just for kids — was opened with a ribbon-cutting on Dec. 3, 2019. The project was made possible through the CHI Health St. Elizabeth Foundation and gracious community donors, who together raised more than $750,000.
Reach the writer at 402-473-2647 or [email protected]
On Twitter @LincolnBizBuzz.
