Education & Career

Where did the concept of travel nurses in Canada and the USA come from?

Where did the concept of travel nurses in Canada and the USA come from?

I am open minded to different ideas and sure there must have been a demand/reason exist where it makes a lot of sense to have some nurses designated as travel nurses and paid 50% more money/hour to work in a different area from where they live (especially if in a remote area makes a lot of sense for this) - remote areas for this make a lot of sense to me.

But I'm not seeing a reason - for travel nurses being positioned in already popular cities - why putting nurse from location A to work in location B and paying them more, then having a shortage in location A and having a nurse from location B cover location a - and paying nurse B 50% more under the travel nurse contract long term each 6 months or 1 yr then repeating again make efficient sense?

I'm sure there must be a reason government health care boards do this - but I can't understand what that reason would be yet. It just seems like that extra 50% to each of those two travel nurses could instead be used to simply hire a third nurse in either location - and all three are paid well at normal salary rates with significantly less work though because of a third nurse being hired to split up the work - would this not be a better alternative?

It seems like a lot of nurses complain about being short staffed and burned out too so it would seem from my perspective as someone who has zero experience in the profession - and so therefore being open minded as I have no experience or merit in this feild behind my perspective - that I am therefore likely wrong or just missing something.

Nurses in the feild - what are your thoughts on what can be changed to alleviate burnout or short staffing if anything? - assuming budget funding is identical and limited exact same.

Where did the concept of travel nurses in Canada and the USA come from?
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