What Many People Believe?
There are many folks that believe that the healthcare industry is recession proof. After all, nearly all healthcare jobs have to be performed in the USA and can’t be shipped overseas to a lower cost supplier. Additionally, people can’t fully control sickness. Nobody wants to get sick, injured or ill…it just happens. While all of this is true, it is also true that healthcare does echo the effects of the economy. What can slow healthcare in a down economy? Well, first people put off receiving healthcare services because they might not be able to afford their insurance deductable. They stay at home sick or postpone elective surgeries. Secondly, job loss is a by product of a downed economy. Job loss often means no healthcare insurance benefits to protect people during times of sickness or injury. Thirdly, a depressed stock market impacts investment revenue that many hospitals depend on. This lost revenue causes hospitals to layoff employees, implement hiring freezes, and often increases the work load of those remaining employed…doing more with less so to speak. Hospitals also acquire bad debt as more patients tend to put off paying their deductibles during economic hardship.
So When Will the Healthcare Staffing Market Improve?
While none of us claim to have a crystal ball, there are some indicators that we can look at to gauge a comeback. First we have to understand a couple of key points. Number one, people can only put off sickness so long before it exacerbates into a situation so bad that healthcare services are sought regardless of cost or consequences. Number two, healthcare staffing leads into an economic recession and always leads out. So, in staffing, when jobs contract or are not available over a length of time….staffing is leading into a recession. As the economy begins to bounce back, staffing jobs will open back up…leading out. Number three, hospitals typically gain patient admission through four vectors. (1) Direct admission from their doctor’s office (2) The patient is born there (OB/GYN) (3) The patient has surgery there (OR) (4) The patient is sick or injured and is admitted by the attending physician (ER).
What We Are Seeing:
*Nationally, we have seen travel nursing jobs decrease in some states as much as 90%. (This is clearly a sign of staffing leading into a recession and happened in the fourth quarter of 2008).
*Nationally we are starting to see OR positions opening up. (This has started to occur in mid January 2009. As the OR is one of the vectors that supplies patients to hospitals, we expect admissions to rise and additional specialty travel nurse positions to open up in 8-12 weeks as a result of this.)
*Nationally we are starting to see ER positions open up. (This tells us that patients are starting to visit the hospitals again…volume is up. The ER also is one of the vectors that supplies patients to the hospital. We expect to see admissions rise and more travel nursing jobs created in about 8-12 weeks)
*Nationally we are starting to see travel nursing jobs rise. (This might be a sign of staffing starting to pull out of a recession….we need to see continued job openings for a few more weeks before it has our full confidence)
*Nationally we are getting notified that hospitals have planned expansions set for spring and summer of 2009. (This will clearly create more travel nursing opportunities)
What We Predict: Based on the data that is before us today, we believe that travel nursing jobs will be slowly trending upward in the first quarter of 2009 and start to gain momentum around the end of March through the end of April 2009. This momentum will continue until around October 2009 and then seasonally adjust.
