Take out a map of the United States. Close your eyes and move your index finger over the map in a circular motion, then drop your finger at random. Where did it land? Chicago, Illinois? Waco, Texas? Buffalo, New York?

If you were a nurse seeking a job, it really wouldn’t matter. You could literally pick a community at random and chances are you would be able to find work there. There is a reason the U.S. Department of Labor designates nursing as number one on its list of shortage occupations. As is common knowledge in health care, and no doubt among the public at large, the United States is in the midst of an acute and growing nurse shortage.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has indicated that there was a shortage of 111,000 nurses in the U.S. in the year 2000, a 6% shortfall. The HHS projects that by 2020, there will be 808,000 too few nurses, a 29% shortfall. Though not all health care analysts concur with these numbers, there is virtually unanimous agreement among health care experts that in just ten years the U.S. will need hundreds of thousands of additional nurses.

The rise of an industry One resource hospitals, medical groups and other health care providers use to address their nurse staffing needs is the growing number of “travel” nurses. These nurses typically work 13 week assignments that can take them from California to Connecticut and points in-between. Travel nurses are not to be confused with “per-diem” nurses, who typically work for a limited number of days and generally do not travel outside the area where they live.

Travel nurses are usually employed by nurse staffing companies (Merritt, Hawkins & Associates’ parent company, AMN Health care, is the largest such company in the country.) The travel nurse staffing model is over 20 years old and was developed to help hospitals with the increasingly difficult task of filling their nursing shifts. What started out as a cottage industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar business. AMN Health care, for example, was originally based in founder Steve Francis’ home and began in 1986 with two employees. In 2006, AMN Health care became the first health care staffing firm to pass $1 billion in revenues, and now employs some 2000 people, mirroring the rise of the nurse staffing industry as a whole.

Going mainstream Twenty years ago, travel nurses were rare at most hospitals. A survey recently conducted by AMN Health care, however, suggests that travel nurses have moved into the staffing mainstream. Released in February, 2007, the survey examines how 353 hospital chief nursing officers (CNOs) use travel nurses at their facilities. Two thirds of CNOs surveyed indicate that their facilities had used travel nurses to supplement their existing staffs at some point during the last 12 months. The majority (57%) say their hospitals currently are using travel nurses to supplement their existing staffs. Sixty-two percent say that they typically use as least one to two travel nurses per month, while one-third say they use up to five travel nurses per month. While there are still hospitals that do not require the services of travel nurses, for many other hospitals they are a necessary resource. Indeed, about 90% of the CNOs surveyed agree with the statement, “Our facility could not function without travel nurses.”

Why use travel nurses? The survey asked CNOs to indicate why they use travel nurses. The results speak to the pervasive and growing shortage of nurses in the United States. The most important reason for using travel nurses, CNOs say, is their current inability to recruit enough permanent nurses. CNOs use travel nurses to maintain services while they search for hard-to-find permanent staff.

Loss of staff nurses to retirement, relocation or termination also was cited by many CNOs as a reason to use travel nurses. In addition, since some 94% of nurses are female, Family Medical Leave is a particular staffing challenge for nurse managers. Travel nurses can help fill gaps created when nurses take Family Medical Leave. CNOs also indicated that travel nurses can maintain revenues by keeping hospital beds or even entire wings open that might otherwise have been shut due to an inadequate number of personnel.

While the number of travel nurses has grown over the years, nurses are not the only health professionals who work temporary assignments. Temporary work is now popular among physicians and allied health care professionals as well. Often, these clinicians are seasoned professionals who are near the end of their careers. The option to work as a “traveler” may actually expand the total health care workforce by keeping these older professionals active when they might otherwise choose to retire. In addition, “traveling” can be a fun and stimulating style of practice, helping to draw young people into nursing and other health professions.

AMN Health care’s 2007 Survey of Hospital Chief Nursing Officers provides more information on travel nursing and I would be happy to email RecruitingTrends.com readers a free copy – just send me a note at my email below.

Kurt Mosley is Vice President of Business Development for Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, a division of AMN Health care (NYSE: AHS). He can be reached at kmosley@mhagroup.com.