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 One of the painful lessons imparted by the recent economic downturn is that health care is not recession proof after all. This is the first recession in many years that caused a slump in health care employment. Many clinical professionals, such as nurses, imaging technologists and others, found jobs comparatively hard to come by--and some even experienced layoffs.
The picture has been a little brighter for physical and other types of therapists, however. One sign of this is that traveling therapists remain in relatively high demand. When the use of travelers is robust, it is a pretty good indication that jobs for permanent therapists are still plentiful, a fact underlined by a new Med Travelers survey.
The survey, which was first conducted in 2007, asks hospital therapy department managers about their use of traveling therapists. Eighty-five percent of department managers at the hospitals surveyed said they had used traveling therapists to supplement their permanent staffs sometime during the last 12 months, up from 67 percent in 2007. While 25 percent said they do not use traveling therapists in a typical month, the majority (62 percent) said they use one to three travelers in a typical month. An additional 13 percent said they use four or more travelers in a typical month.
The primary reason hospital therapy departments use travelers, according to the survey, is to maintain services while they are seeking permanent therapists. Eighty-two percent of those surveyed indicated they use travelers for this reason. The fact that most hospitals continue to use travelers suggests that many facilities have openings in their permanent staffs. By contrast, Med Travelers conducts a similar survey regarding the use of traveling imaging technologists, which indicated the use of imaging travelers declined significantly during the recession and was down from 2007 levels. It appears that the factors driving demand for therapists, including an aging population, higher patient survival rates and the commitment of patients to an active lifestyle were not cancelled out by the recession.
In addition to using travelers while seeking permanent staff, 47 percent of those surveyed said they use travelers to fill in when staff is lost due to turnover or other reasons; 13 percent use travelers to cover for vacationing therapists; 16 percent use travelers as a supplement during peak usage times; and three percent use travelers to test new service lines.
The survey asked therapy department managers to rate the clinical skill level of travelers. Eighty-six percent rated the clinical skills of traveling therapists as either good or excellent, while 14 percent rated their skills as adequate. Eighty-five percent said the value of traveling therapists to their departments was worth the cost, while 15 said the reverse.
The second half of the survey asked physical and occupational therapists working as travelers about their experiences. More than 250 travelers provided data concerning travel assignments they have worked. About one-third of those surveyed (32 percent) indicated that working as a traveling therapist is more satisfying than working in a permanent position. The majority (60 percent), however, said that traveling and permanent work are equally satisfying, while 8 percent said permanent work is more satisfying than traveling. The great majority (91 percent) said they are accepted when on traveling assignments by patients, physicians and permanent therapists.
Brent Harrolle is regional vice president of Med Travelers, a national allied health care professional staffing firm and a company of AMN Healthcare, the largest health care staffing organization in the United States. For complete survey results, contact brent.harrolle@medtravlers.com.
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