How has nursing changed? What is the current state of nursing? Where is the future of nursing heading? These are all important questions, so you’ll want to get them answered by a trusted source. At Coast Medical Service, we provide quality healthcare employment across the country, so we know the state of the healthcare industry in the past, present, and future. Read on to find out about nursing during the pandemic and the effect on healthcare traveler jobs with our explanation of trends in nursing from 2020 to 2022.

Changes to Nursing During the Pandemic

2020 may have started about where 2019 ended, but early in the year brought a radical change to healthcare and every other aspect of life: the Covid-19 pandemic. While nursing has never been an easy or risk-free occupation, nursing during the pandemic obviously had an extra level of challenges. The pandemic brought public attention to nursing and how vital the role of the nurse is in our society. This greater public awareness of healthcare traveler jobs has also included more recognition of the need for competent nurses who are willing to go where they are needed most.

And it isn’t just traveling healthcare that’s getting attention. The demand for nurses of all types has never been higher, and the demands ON nurses have never been higher, either. The reality of nursing changed, both in day-to-day activities and in a large scale scope, with the spread of coronavirus. Major nursing trends beginning in 2020 and continuing into 2021 that are largely due to the pandemic and its effects include the increased use of telehealth services, the increased need for nurses with a specialization in geriatric care, and increased opportunities for online educational resources. So nursing during the pandemic characterized the difficulties of living through 2020 and into 2021.

Recognizing Realities Aside from the Pandemic

While the pandemic and its effects do fundamentally define the state of healthcare for 2020, 2021, and beyond, it is important to recognize realities for healthcare traveler jobs aside from the pandemic. For example, in 2022, nurse salaries should continue to rise since the demand for nurses is higher than ever. Critically, though, this increase isn’t just because of the pandemic, although pay does skyrocket when nursing is in a crisis. Under the Affordable Care Act, more people have access to medical care than ever before, and the effects of that law are still taking shape and affecting the demands in American healthcare.

Plus, both the population and the workforce are aging more rapidly than before, due in part to our contemporary average lifespan being much higher than in the past and also because the large baby boomer generation now increasingly requires more specialized health care. It’s not just that more nurses are needed but that more specialized or specially trained nurses are needed, especially in areas with bigger populations of seniors and retirees. So yes, part of the reason there is an increased need for nurses with specialization in geriatric care is because older people are more at risk during the pandemic, but there are also other factors affecting healthcare traveler jobs.

Heading into the Future

Regardless of the reasons that current trends in nursing come to be, the fact is that nursing today looks pretty different than it did in the past, even five years ago. Travel nurse staffing is the new norm, allowing hospitals and clinics to meet seasonal staffing needs and temporarily fill hard-to-fill roles without the burden of longtime commitments, which also helps reduce burnout. Finding healthcare traveler jobs suited to individual specializations is a more streamlined process than it has been, now that the demand and awareness for this type of work have increased.

Telehealth is here to stay, and this type of technology is also going to be increasingly integrated into nursing in all aspects. For example, now that virtual recruitment is the norm, the approval process is typically much faster, so nurses applying for healthcare traveler jobs can receive answers and assignments much more quickly than was the established standard before the pandemic. The efficiency standard will likely continue to rise through 2022 as companies and individuals get more used to the integrated technological process as the new norm for nursing.

An Overall Perspective

In 2020, nursing changed to have more public attention and demand and be more technologically integrated. Nursing during the pandemic continued into 2021 with an increase in healthcare traveler jobs, with a particular need for those with a specialty in geriatric care. Looking to 2022, salaries will likely continue to rise as more nurses consciously work in a specialized type of healthcare, exploring options with telehealth and other technological integrations for their work. Applications and approvals will be streamlined for traveling nurses to more effectively move around as the country gets used to this “new norm.”

Stay Current with Coast

Feeling ready for nursing in 2022? We hope so because we’re ready to help you find the perfect place to get started. Understanding nursing industry trends is important, but you don’t have to stay on top of everything by yourself. At Coast Medical Service, we foster relationships between high-quality nurses and their healthcare employers, so that hospitals get the staff and nurses get the experience they need. If you’re qualified, we’d love to work with you.

With numerous healthcare traveler jobs across the country, we can help you find the perfect match. Get started by browsing from our current openings to stay up-to-date on what we have for you. And feel free to contact us for individualized support.