Nurses Using Internal Pools

Aurora Health Care is saving about $1 million a year by using “float pools,” or an internal pool of nurses, rather than an agency to plug staffing gaps, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Covenant Healthcare has saved about $500,000 by using an internal pool. Meanwhile, The Record in Stockton, California, reports that the new patient-nurse ratio law in California has caused the nursing shortage to spread. Now, not only are hospitals short of nurses, but staffing agencies are as well. Carol Farron, community development director for Lodi Memorial Hospital, says the law “couldn’t have come at a worse time for us.”