The Use Of Temporary Staff

February 2015

Question from Fontana Pharmacist:
“I am seeing many registry RNs daily working at my hospital. Hiring registry RNs (non-UNAC members) is essentially outsourcing jobs. Why hasn't UNAC done something about it? Or what has UNAC done about it?”

Kaiser employs traveling nurses for limited periods of time, usually six to eight weeks, on a sporadic basis. Traveling nurses are temporary hires used to cover long term leaves of absence and to staff hard to fill positions until KP’s internal training programs are completed to fill the open positions. Travelers are not used to fill an open position on a permanent basis.

UNAC/UHCP is fully informed of traveler use, and constantly monitors where travelers are working and why, and addresses training needs to eliminate on-going use of travelers within a single department or medical center. There are currently seven travelers at Fontana Medical Center filling in for long term leaves of absence.

Though this may be considered “temporary” outsourcing, UNAC/UHCP is supportive of short-term workload/staffing solutions to protect our members’ ability to provide quality patient care until permanent staff can be hired. In addition, during the flu season every year KP hires 125-175 traveling nurses to augment permanent inpatient staff on a short term basis in anticipation of increased census.

UNAC/UHCP meets with the Company before travelers are hired for the flu season to discuss how many, where, and the length of their contracts. Currently there are 154 travelers spread through every medical center, including 16 at Fontana, to address flu season staffing needs.