Healthcare on the Go: A Comparative Analysis Profiling the Travel Nurse Workforce in the United States

Background

Travel nurses play a pivotal role in filling acute staffing gaps, thereby adding resilience to the country’s healthcare service. Never has the value of travel nurses been clearer than it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a comprehensive national assessment of travel nurses’ demographic and professional profiles has not yet been conducted, nor is there any detailed accounting of the specific challenges these nurses encountered.

Purpose

To gain a better understanding of the demographic and practice characteristics of travel nurses.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional descriptive analysis of 2,006 travel nurses (1,239 registered nurses [RNs] and 767 licensed practical nurses/licensed vocational nurses [simply referred to as licensed practical nurses, or LPNs, throughout the abstract]) who participated in the 2022 National Nursing Workforce Survey. Information on their demographic characteristics, practice experiences during the pandemic, and future practice plans was collected and evaluated. The comparison group was made up of 41,729 nontravel nurses (22,803 RNs and 18,926 LPNs) who participated in the same survey.

Results

Travel nurses tended to be younger, exhibit greater gender diversity, and report better pay than nontravel nurses. A significantly higher proportion of travel nurses held multistate licenses (64% versus 34% for RNs, and 55% versus 31% for LPNs). The odds of travel nurses using their multistate license in practice were about 5 times greater than they were for nontravel nurses (RNs: OR = 5.93; 95% CI: 5.02–7.00, p < .01; LPNs: OR = 5.09; 95% CI: 4.11–6.29, p < .01). Travel nurses reported higher work stress and burnout than nontravel nurses: 64% versus 47% of RNs and 53% versus 48% of LPNs reported being emotionally drained either a few times per week or every day. A significantly higher proportion of travel nurses younger than 60 years planned to leave nursing in the next 5 years compared to nontravel nurses (33% versus 17% for RNs, OR = 2.27, 95% CI: 2.00–2.59, p < .01, and 21% versus 17% for LPNs, OR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.05–1.56, p < .05).

Conclusion

Despite comparatively higher pay and younger age, travel nurses experienced elevated work stress and were more likely than nontravel nurses to consider leaving their nursing career early. Healthcare regulators, travel nurse agencies, and nursing employers should be aware of the unique demographics and practice characteristics of travel nurses to develop more effective retention strategies to maintain a healthy and stable nursing workforce.