What Educational Qualification Does A Traveling Nurse Require

Traveling nurses are basically Registered Nurses (RNs) from different clinical backgrounds who work for unconventional healthcare staffing agencies. Traveling registered nurses are allocated to several healthcare places per diem or temporary to replenish short-term nursing employment vacancies. In this blog, we will find out what educational qualification for traveling nurse facilities asks.

What Is A Travel Nurse?

Traveling nursing is a clinical specialty that took root when the department of healthcare nursing faced a countrywide scarcity. Clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare places had vacant places, yet sick people required care. To pull & fascinate traveling nurses to the unfilled positions, most healthcare employers provided housing, higher pay, and covered relocating costs.

Because of these shortages of nurses, health care places have openings that have to be filled—and traveling nurses are usually the personnel to fill vacant positions. Traveling nurses work in health care in any region or state in the country, but they also function outside of the United States as international traveling nurses. The excitement and adventure of all-new opportunities, along with greater-than-average pay, are facets of traveling nursing jobs that several Registered Nurses find lucrative and fascinating.

Why Are Travel Nurses Important?

Traveling nurses are a significant staff of the health care department as they assist bridge the gap between demand and supply in the healthcare nursing field. Requisite nurse-patient proportions have led to escalated patient safety and reduced patient mortality. However, this is a positive aspect, and several regions have started passing laws to implement staffing proportions. There are not sufficient traveling nurses to fill the vacancies. Traveling nurses are assigned to those open vacancies to help maximize patient safety and refine patient outcomes. 

Moreover, traveling nurses from distinct healthcare facilities, educational backgrounds, and regional locations bring a lucrative deal to nursing practice. Exchanging practices and ideas benefits patients and traveling, and other nurses.

How To Become A Travel Nurse

When it comes to becoming a traveling nurse, you need to know some key points and have necessary traveling nurse skills that play an important role in the job. A traveling nurse should possess the following attributes to fit in the position:

• They should enjoy experiencing new towns, cities, and healthcare facilities.
• Traveling nurses should enjoy freedom. They can prefer when and where to work and pick their duration of employment.
• To become a traveling nurse, one should enjoy the job’s flexibility. Traveling nurses prepare their benefits packages, schedules, and earning-based on which facility and agency they pick to work.
• People should thrive on challenges. Shifting to various states or countries and being called “the new nurse” is tough and challenging. Learning and coping up with new organizational systems and workflows are extremely challenging.
• People need to love learning new stuff. Each healthcare facility presents different nursing assignments to traveling nurses, a few with varying standards of practice or higher levels of technology. Each working experience assists traveling nurses build upon their knowledge base.
• Moreover, traveling nurses are required to have supportive friends and families. It’s tough to either pack up and shift with a whole family or leave your family and folks behind. The positive side to this job is that you can make new relationships in each new facility or place.

What Educational Qualifications Are Needed To Become A Traveling Nurse 

Below, we are enlisting some mandatory educational criteria and skills required for a traveling nurse:

• Those candidates interested in the department of traveling nurses should initially pursue a medical nursing degree via a two or four-year university. Receiving a bachelor’s degree (BSN) or an associate’s degree in nursing (ADN) is needed. 
• A BSN is not needed to be a traveling nurse, but a few health care places only hire BSN-prepared medical nurses.
• The healthcare staffing agency where the traveling nurse is working should match the nurse adequately depending on their educational requirements.
• After completing a recognized nursing program, you need to complete the NCLEX-RN successfully for licensure.
• Lots of traveling nurse agencies ask for at least one year of hands-on experience in the preferred specialty of medical nursing. Moreover, a few healthcare agencies will only appoint BSN-prepared Registered Nurses or RNs. 
• International traveling nurses should know multiple languages so that they can effectively communicate with the patients and other people of the country they are practicing. It is because communication is a significant part of effective healthcare delivery. Traveling nurses are inspired to research healthcare agencies when choosing to become traveling nurses.

Also Read – Top Skills A Licensed Practical Nurse Must Possess

Are Any Certifications or Credentials Needed?

No extra assessments are needed for traveling nurses. Depending on the specialty, some certification(s) may be needed. Some examples include:

• Medical/Surgical nursing
• Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) may be required.
• Basic Life Support (BLS)
• Stroke care certification
• Telemetry certification
• Trauma Nurse Core Course (TNCC) certification
• Intensive Care (ICU) nursing
• Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)
• Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) certification
• Women’s Health/Labor and Delivery nursing
• Critical care nursing (adults, pediatric, neonatal)
• Emergency Room nursing

Additional certain needs may be required for international traveling nurses. These include:

• Having a work visa and passport (generally managed by the agency)
• Additional immunizations
• Learning about illnesses and epidemics spread to the state
• Striving to multiple languages

What Do Travel Nurses Do?

Traveling nurses have the same role as permanent nursing staff in the hospitals in which they work. Though, they are appointed by contract on a temporary basis to fill a nursing staff shortage. The average travel nurse work duration is 13 weeks in one healthcare facility.

Travel Nurse Job Description

Many people are unsure about the job description of a travel nurse. The travel nurse’s job description includes caring for critical patients using diagnoses, assessments, and monitoring, like standard or permanent nurses. Traveling nurses may be needed to visit and check patients in their residences if they are not in a condition to commute to the hospital. Being a registered travel nurse, you’ll see yourself caring for sick people as part of a team of permanent healthcare staff, despite your contractual role. In fact, when a travel nurse’s contract ends, lots of your co-staff might be shocked to know you weren’t a permanent nurse!

You can add some below-listed duties in your traveling nurse resume. Core duties of a travel nurse also include:

• Educate patients and their visitors about treatments and conditions
• Administer medication
• Provide help and support to injured or sick patients
• Perform tests and assess test results
• Taking a follow up with patients post-treatment

How Much do Traveling Nurses Make?

Travel nurse payments can fluctuate depending on region, education, and contracts. For instance, lots of hospitals ask for an advanced nursing degree, like a Bachelor of Science in Nursing; others may ask for an Associate in Nursing or Registered Nurse. Healthcare facilities in big cities are also supposed to pay more than healthcare facilities in rural counties as more cost-of-living expenditures. And, a few travel nurse contracts enable them to receive extensions or bonuses, which would upscale their base pay. Besides salary, most travel nurse contracts offer meal stipends, a housing allowance, and travel reimbursements.

While all of these perks need to be considered, the average yearly salary of a travel nurse is around $75,000, as per the USA Payscale.

Travel Nurse Working Conditions

Just like any career, there are negative and positive aspects to working as a travel nurse in any facility. Travel nurses need to deal with stress as they may hold a heavy patient burden and have several challenging decisions to make. Moreover, travel nurses may face isolation as they are supposed to relocate frequently. Having a great sense of independence and a support system, even remotely, can help you a lot.

Furthermore, travel nurses may appoint some high-danger places to expose them to blood-borne pathogens, workstation violence, and hazardous chemicals. Travel nurses must frequently familiarize themselves and stick to safety norms set by the healthcare facility.

If you are willing to become an international travel nurse, you may face various challenges. Travel nurses must be aware of the geographic-specific diseases, nation’s laws and always maintain their overall safety as precedence.

Regardless of these considerations, travel nursing can be exceptionally rewarding. Most facilities and staff nurses praise the help and service travel nurses provide. Travel nurses help allay staff from exhausting work hours, as working under pressure is common in short-staffed healthcare facilities.

Being an international travel nurse, you receive lots of appreciation. They offer medical care and support to every patient in remote work settings who otherwise would have no access to the facility. Travel nurses help with relief attempts in war zones or post-disaster events, which can be both enriching and rewarding.

Now, you know almost everything about the job of a travel nurse. If you are willing to become one, visit our website I’Kare Consulting Firm and look for eligibility criteria. If you meet our eligibility criteria, we look forward to recruiting you and working with you. We would love to have potential candidates like you. I’Kare Consulting Firm is a staffing agency that recruits registered nurses, travel nurses, per diem nurses, and licensed private nurses at a higher pay scale.